# How DO You prosecute a 31 year Old case? (R. Polanski) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 28, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846 "2009-09-28T14:06:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![fuzzypickles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9d8465/32.png) [@fuzzypickles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzypickles)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/21 "2009-09-28T18:15:59Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It wasn’t just rich white guy treatment, but Hollywood celebrity treatment, which is another class unto itself. Hollywood itself seems to be soft on child molesters in general. For example, [Victor Salva](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Salva) is still making movies, despite being convicted for sex with a minor and producing child pornography. Polanski’s already been convicted, but he does have grounds for appealing the prior judgment and procuring a new trial, which will become a major issue. It’s all but certain that his victim will refuse to testify against him, which will greatly weaken the prosecutor’s case. My guess is that he’ll work out some sweetheart deal, based on his high profile, his advanced age, and the fact that he’s kept himself clean during the past 30 years (at least I assume that’s the case…has anyone caught him hanging out in Vietnamese brothels with Gary Glitter?) > [@MsWhatsit](#): > > I am sure there are a lot of victims that, out of embarrassment or shame or some other reason, don’t want to press charges, but that shouldn’t be a consideration in whether the rapist is punished or not. You do the crime, you do the time. True, but that’s precisely why rape cases are so difficult to prosecute, especially if there’s no witnesses or physical evidence left behind. Without the victim’s testimony, the prosecutor has little to go on. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/22 "2009-09-28T18:21:35Z")
> [@stuthehistoryguy](#): > > **Martin** , if the original crime was indeed so heinous (as opposed to both parties getting stoned off their faces and doing something they shouldn’t do - which rightfully is a crime for an adult) then why does the “victim” say that Polanski should do no jail time? Does that even matter? She declared (and never retracted it) that she was forced, said “no” but he raped her anyway. That’s a particularly heinous crime, no matter how forgiving she is. This is not a Jerry Lee Lewis sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/23 "2009-09-28T18:25:23Z")
> [@Sr\_Siete](#): > > Does that even matter? She declared (and never retracted it) that she was forced, said “no” but he raped her anyway. That’s a particularly heinous crime, no matter how forgiving she is. This is not a Jerry Lee Lewis sort of thing. Exactly. She doesn’t dispute her original account of what happened. Neither has Polanski, in any substantive way. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/24 "2009-09-28T19:41:40Z")
> [@stuthehistoryguy](#): > > **Martin** , if the original crime was indeed so heinous (as opposed to both parties getting stoned off their faces and doing something they shouldn’t do - which rightfully is a crime for an adult) then why does the “victim” say that Polanski should do no jail time? The victim has given detailed descriptions of the crime. She said that she was scared, wanted to go home, that she told him to stop repeatedly et cetera. She said quite frankly (and this was on [CNN.com](http://CNN.com) a few days ago) that the reason she wants the charges dropped is because she’s lived practically her entire adult life under the shadow of this thing. Every time this case gets back on the front page she says reporters hound her to no end, she was sexually assaulted over 30 years ago and is tired of having to deal with it in the public sphere. She has never once said that it was anything other than a brutal rape by a violent criminal, the fact that she has moved on certainly doesn’t change her account of the attack–and I’m not aware of anyone familiar with the evidence who calls it anything other than an outright, violent rape. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/25 "2009-09-28T19:51:44Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Many commentators and Hwd types have been glossing over this. They don’t want to confront the reality that a man they view as an eminence grise was actually as brutal as any street thug. Yeah, I think people just have this intellectual “block” on imagining Polanski as a violent sexual criminal. But if you describe this crime and the perpetrator was pretty much anyone else (aside from someone from the celebrity-arts sphere) and people would be out for blood. When a celebrity like Michael Vick does something heinous I don’t think society is particularly shocked. There is a long and unfortunate history of professional athletes having personal behavior that rises to felony level crimes (and of course there is the O.J. case.) When a celebrity politician does something corrupt, again, people jut aren’t very surprised. Society ‘accepts’ that this can happen. But for whatever reason you take a person who is capable of wondrous works of art and I don’t think people are mentally prepared to recognize that such people can also be monsters. Polanski is sophisticated, European, creative, part of the “genteel” society. People like that don’t drug teenagers and anally rape them, that’s too low brow, and a guy like Polanski can get laid any time he wants…right? But well, the truth is all that aside people just like that can exhibit the worst sides of the human character. I think Roman Polanski is probably more good than bad, but I think he did something unconscionable 30 years ago and I see no compelling reason to ignore it. Especially since I can point to a great number of other cases in which old men have been brought to task for heinous crimes committed decades past, with society giving them little to no mercy. I personally have a **lot** more sympathy with an elderly inmate who has been in prison for decades and will probably never be released. Those guys are no longer threats to society **and** they have genuinely paid a heavy price for their crime. Maybe some crimes you can never truly atone for (like murder), and maybe it is just to lock murderers and other heinous criminals away until they die. That isn’t for me to say, but I can understand some sympathy for the elderly murderer who did something stupid and evil as a 20-something kid. Polanski has never been brought to any meaningful justice for his crime, has never even really seemed to own up to it, I can’t really feel sorry for a guy who spent the 30 years after his criminal act in happiness and prosperity in France and other European countries that wouldn’t extradite him. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/26 "2009-09-28T21:15:23Z")
Sorry for the hijack, but why wouldn’t France and other European countries extradite him? From what I know, or think I know, a lot of European countries won’t extradite criminals that would face the death penalty because they are against it. But I doubt France and others are against Polanski serving jail time for rape ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/27 "2009-09-28T21:38:03Z")
> [@fuzzypickles](#): > > Hollywood itself seems to be soft on child molesters in general. For example, [Victor Salva](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Salva) is still making movies, despite being convicted for sex with a minor and producing child pornography. And what part of his being convicted and serving 15 months before being paroled did you miss? He did not get a life without parole sentance. In the US, you do your sentence, and you are then free to be out in the world, work, play, marry … whatever _legal_ act you want to commit, and last i knew making cheesy horror movies wasn’t illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/28 "2009-09-28T21:48:08Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Sorry for the hijack, but why wouldn’t France and other European countries extradite him? From what I know, or think I know, a lot of European countries won’t extradite criminals that would face the death penalty because they are against it. But I doubt France and others are against Polanski serving jail time for rape Generally French nationals cannot be extradited from French soil to another country. That doesn’t mean if you’re a French national you can go on a murderous rampage in another country and then return to France and get away without facing consequences. What happens is the French will then (at the request of the country in which the crime was committed) try the person in a French court for the crime committed outside of France. There is a recent case in which a man killed a Chicago dermatologist and ran away to France, where he surrendered to authorities and confessed. He made it quite clear that he did it because a “life sentence in Illinois means a minimum of 20 years and in France it means a maximum of 22 years” (that was the words of the defendant and I have no idea if they are legally correct for Illinois or France), as a French national he could not be extradited but I do believe he ended up being tried and convicted in France and is serving his sentence in a French prison. Even (then Senator) Barack Obama appealed to the French to try and get the murderer extradited to the United States, but under French law the hands of the officials were tied. Conversely, the extradition treaty between the United States and France stipulates that America _will_ extradite American nationals to France. Most likely because of significant differences in how both countries view criminal justice. I imagine American justice officials don’t want to take on the burden of prosecuting people for crimes committed in another country and then housing people here in an American prison for crimes committed in another country. The U.S. could have requested that Polanski be tried in France but it never did so, possibly because they viewed him as a confessed criminal and a fugitive from justice who they wanted to deal with directly, or possibly because of a fear that the French system would never convict him. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/29 "2009-09-28T21:55:12Z")
Yeah, fine, go ahead and suspend the rape sentence if you think it was no big deal, or it’s too long ago, or whatever. He still needs to go away for some hard time for taking it on the run. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/30 "2009-09-28T22:18:58Z")
> [@](#): > > The U.S. could have requested that Polanski be tried in France but it never did so, possibly because they viewed him as a confessed criminal and a fugitive from justice who they wanted to deal with directly, or possibly because of a fear that the French system would never convict him. I believe that the crime that Polanski was convicted of - not the one he actually committed - isn’t a crime in France - different AOC. So the French court couldn’t very well try him for something that’s not a crime in their jurisdiction, could they? ---
**Author:** ![Reloy3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c68b51/32.png) [@Reloy3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reloy3)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/31 "2009-09-28T23:13:37Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Polanski’s case is pretty much textbook “rich white guy gets special treatment.” > > There is a ton of misinformation about the case on these forums, too, for example: > > 1. This wasn’t a case of a promiscuous 13 year old in the 70s who did some drugs and fucked a famous Hollywood director. He lured her to a private residence ostensibly to do a photo shoot, he drugged her and then raped her despite her repeated protests. Let’s not imagine this was just an “age of consent” issue, it was completely forced sex, not just simply a violation of age of consent laws that many view as arbitrary. Any non-rich, non-famous guy in America would have been charged and most likely convicted of rape (or whatever the crime is called in the respective state); not a relatively “minor” offense like the violation of age of consent laws but a true, serious, felony-level rape conviction that would have meant many years incarceration. > > 2. Polanski entered a plea of guilty as part of a plea bargain. For non-Americans this is how something like 90% of criminal cases end up, most of the time the accused is guilty, most of the time the accused has an attorney that advises them they will **not** win at trial, and most of the time they cut a deal for a reduction in sentence in exchange for pleading guilty and not wasting the public’s time and money with a trial. > > 3. The original deal would have left Polanski with something like virtually no time incarceration, at all. It was a sweetheart deal you would **never** see offered to a lower middle class guy, and certainly not to a non-white (if a black man committed this crime he’d probably still be in prison to this very day–there was a rape case just a few years ago near where I live in which two black men in their 20s received almost 100 year sentences for rape.) > > 4. Where things get controversial is the judge was a showman and wanted a lot of attention. The judge also made it clear he wasn’t going to go along with the plea deal (judges do not have to accept a plea agreement, and I think most neutral observers would say the plea agreement in question was a miscarriage of justice and made a mockery of the concept of equal application of the laws, a judge could not in good conscience accept it.) Where things get problematic is how the judge went about things, he get the media involved, he basically became too involved in the case in a system in which the judge is supposed to be impartial. He also made Polanski stay in some sort of facility (I’m not clear on whether it was a high-security mental hospital or a prison–but either way my impression is it was a rough place) and Polanski most likely fled the country when he was out on temporary release because he couldn’t cut it in a rough place filled with violent criminals (of which he was one, of course, but I doubt he sees himself that way.) > > Most likely if it was any non-famous, non-upper class defendant who had a judge behave like this they probably could have drug out an appeals process and received a new sentencing but I very seriously doubt any state court in the United States would sentence a man who raped a 13 year old after drugging her to any sentence that didn’t involve prison time. > > Finally, I wonder why people are so concerned about how you prosecute a 31 year old case. How many people were up in arms supporting Byron de la Beckwith when he was convicted at trial some 30+ years after murdering civil rights leader Medgar Evers? Hear hear. I couldn’t have said it better myself. When I was a felony prosecutor, I would not have considered a sentence less than 30 years based on those allegation. And if I did, the judge would have laughed at the plea deal. The last sexual assault of a minor that age I tried is serving a sentence in excess of 120 years. As for 30 year old prosecutions - it is hard, but can be done. I did prosecute a father molesting his daughter in 1973 (the trial occurred in 2003). It also helps that I live in a state with no criminal statute of limitations. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/32 "2009-09-29T00:02:20Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > That true? What I heard on NPR today was that this is a bit of a “he said she said.” She says it was not only non-consensual but positively physically forced, he says it was completely consensual. I genuinely doubt it was he said she said. You understand that Roman Polanski was a wealthy, upper class, white male in America in the 1970s. His attorney would have been one of the best money could buy, and his attorney would not tell his client to enter into a plea bargain if he thought it was a simple case of “he said she said.” Against a skilled defense attorney I sort of doubt a simple “he said she said” case would result in a prosecutor establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Polanski has settled out of court with this woman in a civil suit, again, you don’t do that if you’re legitimately under the impression you did nothing wrong. Remember Kobe Bryant never talked plea deal or settlement when he was accused of rape, and for good reason, he was almost certainly not guilty. (Though he later settled after the criminal charges were dismissed–most likely to avoid more embarrassing details coming out about the liaison.) The victim has openly admitted she hates the fact this is still going on and wants the case to go away, so I’d think if she just made it up after all these years she’d probably come clean about it because that would put a definitive end to the situation. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/33 "2009-09-29T00:12:45Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I genuinely doubt it was he said she said. You understand that Roman Polanski was a wealthy, upper class, white male in America in the 1970s. His attorney would have been one of the best money could buy, and his attorney would not tell his client to enter into a plea bargain if he thought it was a simple case of “he said she said.” But both the “he said” and the “she said” side result in a conviction on rape charges, so it seems like a plea bargain is the way to go, even if the act was consensual. (Of course it can’t be consensual in the legal sense.) Anyway, I don’t claim Pulanski’s account is true, I just didn’t think it was true that Pulanski hasn’t disputed the victim’s account. ---
**Author:** ![Cesario](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Cesario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cesario)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/34 "2009-09-29T02:02:56Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > 1. This wasn’t a case of a promiscuous 13 year old in the 70s who did some drugs and fucked a famous Hollywood director. He lured her to a private residence ostensibly to do a photo shoot, he drugged her and then raped her despite her repeated protests. Let’s not imagine this was just an “age of consent” issue, it was completely forced sex, not just simply a violation of age of consent laws that many view as arbitrary. Any non-rich, non-famous guy in America would have been charged and most likely convicted of rape (or whatever the crime is called in the respective state); not a relatively “minor” offense like the violation of age of consent laws but a true, serious, felony-level rape conviction that would have meant many years incarceration. If you want people to remember this, stop refering to her age. Stop mentioning that she was a minor, and stop mentioning she was 13. Just call it rape and leave it at that. You don’t increase the horror by mentioning her age. You diminish it. The existence of the age of consent and the crime of “statutory rape” dilutes the entire concept of rape. When you call something rape that is “everyone was just fine with it until the government came in and decided one of the parties wasn’t allowed to say ‘yes’,” the term rape loses its meaning. If the girl was saying “no”, and this fact was agreed on by all parties involved, this is rape. Period. Dragging the age of consent into this is only going to serve to diminish the crime and the percieved culpability of the perpetrator. No one should be punished for having consensual sex, and the entire purpose of statutory rape law is to criminalize consensual sex. By prosecuting him under that law, they’ve guaranteed that people are going to treat this as a perfectly consensual sex act instead of as a rape. This is yet another reason we shouldn’t have an age of consent. When a “yes” is legally identical to a “no”, there’s no incentive to listen to a “no”. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/35 "2009-09-29T02:03:23Z")
In any case… when he made his plea bargain, that stipulated a lot of the facts, taking them out of question. He could and can appeal the terms of his sentencing for **that** crime based on errors of law or procedure. But OTOH, he **has** blatantly committed the entirely separate offense of flight from justice, which requires no cooperation from the original victim and for which he would face a separate set of sanctions. (Apparently he got the impression that the Judge would ignore the plea bargain in order to make an “example” out of him and that he would not be allowed to be out on bail while appealing) France \*and \*Poland both have opposed the extradition of Polanski to the US. It is not unusual at all for many countries to forbid extradition of someone who holds their citizenship, requiring instead that the process if any be changed of venue to their own courts. And if he’s getting mentioned at the Academy Awards show in connection with a winning film, it’s natural that he get some applause. I don’t recall a Standing O, he may or may not have got one but I’d rather have some tape to review before making that call, memory may trick us into thinking something happened worse or better than what did… ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/36 "2009-09-29T02:24:12Z")
> [@Cesario](#): > > If you want people to remember this, stop refering to her age. Stop mentioning that she was a minor, and stop mentioning she was 13. Just call it rape and leave it at that. > > You don’t increase the horror by mentioning her age. You diminish it. The existence of the age of consent and the crime of “statutory rape” dilutes the entire concept of rape. When you call something rape that is “everyone was just fine with it until the government came in and decided one of the parties wasn’t allowed to say ‘yes’,” the term rape loses its meaning. > > If the girl was saying “no”, and this fact was agreed on by all parties involved, this is rape. Period. Dragging the age of consent into this is only going to serve to diminish the crime and the percieved culpability of the perpetrator. > > No one should be punished for having consensual sex, and the entire purpose of statutory rape law is to criminalize consensual sex. By prosecuting him under that law, they’ve guaranteed that people are going to treat this as a perfectly consensual sex act instead of as a rape. > > This is yet another reason we shouldn’t have an age of consent. When a “yes” is legally identical to a “no”, there’s no incentive to listen to a “no”. I’ve repeatedly mentioned the age of the victim because it is totally relevant, at least in the U.S. system. People who rape children tend to get much harsher sentences than people who rape adults, it is a legally relevant thing to note. Statutory rape and “sex with a minor” are totally separate crimes in most jurisdictions, and one act can encompass both crimes. In many states you see an increase in the classification of a crime if the victim is below a certain age and in pretty much all states the court system tends to punish child rapists more than other types, because judges and juries are impacted by the emotional aspect of it. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/37 "2009-09-29T02:48:11Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > From what I know, or think I know, a lot of European countries won’t extradite criminals that would face the death penalty because they are against it. It’s not that they won’t extradite - it’s that they won’t extradite for a capital offence unless the requesting country (in practice, that’s almost always the U.S.) agrees not to seek the death penalty for the offence and instead makes the person liable for some lesser penalty if convicted. For example, Canada won’t extradite unless that assurance is given; see [United States v. Burns](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Burns). As well, there may be disagreements about the fairness of the trial process in the requesting country. For example, in the [Ira Einhorn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Einhorn#Extradition) case, the Pennsylvania courts had tried him in absentia. When he was eventually found in France, the U.S. requested extradition but under French law, trial in absentia is not acceptable, so the French courts refused to extradite. Pennsylvania then amended its statutes to allow for a complete re-trial, and France then extradited Einhorn. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/38 "2009-09-29T03:20:39Z")
The age of rthe victim is absolutely relevant, and absolutely makes the crime even more vile. There is no such thing as a consenting child. ---
**Author:** ![Cesario](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Cesario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cesario)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/39 "2009-09-29T03:41:54Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I’ve repeatedly mentioned the age of the victim because it is totally relevant, at least in the U.S. system. People who rape children tend to get much harsher sentences than people who rape adults, it is a legally relevant thing to note. Statutory rape and “sex with a minor” are totally separate crimes in most jurisdictions, and one act can encompass both crimes. > > In many states you see an increase in the classification of a crime if the victim is below a certain age and in pretty much all states the court system tends to punish child rapists more than other types, because judges and juries are impacted by the emotional aspect of it. They’re also psychologically tied to statutory rapists, which are an entirely different category specifically created for the purposes of punishing what would otherwise be considered perfectly acceptable sex acts between fully aware, entusiastic participants. Like I said, calling it rape and stressing the fact that it was explicitly nonconsensual is a better strategy for people to consider it harshly than talking about the “rape” of a minor, which has the two different meaningings, one of which is significantly less valid than the other. > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The age of rthe victim is absolutely relevant, and absolutely makes the crime even more vile. No it doesn’t. If it did, you’d have to agree that it’s morally better to rape an adult, and I’m not going to accept that there are any demographics that it is “more okay” to rape. > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > There is no such thing as a consenting child. Legal fiction. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2009, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846/40 "2009-09-29T03:46:20Z")
> [@Cesario](#): > > No one should be punished for having consensual sex, and the entire purpose of statutory rape law is to criminalize consensual sex. By prosecuting him under that law, they’ve guaranteed that people are going to treat this as a perfectly consensual sex act instead of as a rape. > > This is yet another reason we shouldn’t have an age of consent. When a “yes” is legally identical to a “no”, there’s no incentive to listen to a “no”. This is nothing but a hijack to push your own agenda, again. The topic is in regards to the possibility of prosecuting ancient crimes. If you want to make claims about all “consensual” sex being fine on all occasions, open a new thread. **Everyone** : discussions of whether statutory rape is a legitimate crime do not belong in this thread. [/Moderating] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-prosecute-a-31-year-old-case-r-polanski/511846.md?page=3)