Film Makers Demand Polanski Release
Whatever.
I don’t know about you but someone repeatedly saying no and asking someone to stop doesn’t sound like consent to me.
I don’t know how much blame to put on the mother for letting her go of unsupervised with a 44 year old man but after it happened she showed her support by giving up a possible carreer to take her daughter and leave Hollywood.
This didn’t happen at a Hollywood party. Polanski went to her home and picked her up. Theoretically to take pictures of her for the french version iof Vague. He then took her to a house (the testimony and wiki seem to indicate it was Jack Nicholson’s house) and gave her champagne and part of a quaalude. Then he proceeded to rape and sodomize a 13 year old while she said no and asked him to stop.
I feel like a broken record here but people keep trying to draw this as a picture where poor Roman just happened to have sex with a girl who although she consented was just barely too young to take it forcibly in the ass. Which, according to the deposition, is exactly NOT what happened. None of which Polanski denied.
If your victim asks that the crime not be prosecuted, I defer to her. She has repeatedly said she suffered more from the media exposure than the crime and that she has recovered from the crime; I think her wishes should be honored.
Years ago when Bobby Delaughter prosecuted Byron de la Beckwith for the 30 year old murder of Medgar Evers I was completely for it. This was because-
= the Evers family wanted it
= the previous trials had been a travesty of justice
= his actions in the meanwhile had been reprehensible (bragging about the murder, suspected involvement in others, various prison sentences for other crimes)
= it was a powerful symbolic act as well
I though the same when Egar Ray Killen was jailed a few years ago for his passive involvement in the Mississippi Burning murders, and there were other cold-to-frigid civil rights era crimes also being prosecuted.
HOWEVER, once Delaughter and others got massive publicity and book deals others seeking to make a name for themselves came out of the woodwork. There’s in fact been an on-again/off-again attempt to indict Carolyn Bryant, the woman Emmett Till allegedly whistled at and was subsequently tortured to death over his actions toward. Till’s murderers not only got away scot free but, thanks to double jeopardy, sold their story to a national magazine completely admitting they were guilty as hell. They are dead now, but Carolyn Bryant is still alive, and the pandering and “I’m against the murder of Emmett Till and it’s time his killers saw justice!” outcries of various prosecutors and investigators was sickening. Bryant was not involved in the murder- she did not even tell her husband about him whistling at her- and she was in fact terrified of the man [he was a wifebeater] and left him soon after the trial, and she’s now an old woman living on a pension who’s had a blameless life other than the Emmett Till incident- again, it profits nobody to incarcerate her.
Polansky is not blameless (as I believe Bryant is), but I do see in his arrest much of the same mentality. It’s not about the victim, it’s about the decriers. It’s about people wanting to say “I’m against child rape!” (is anyone sane for it?) and “There must be justice!” when in fact the victim is MORE VICTIMIZED BY THE MEDIA than by the trial. It should be about what SHE wants, THAT IS JUSTICE.
Polanski is able to afford the best attorneys on Earth. How hard do you think it will be for them to delay and poke holes in a 31 year old case that had improprieties revealed by judicial review 30 years ago? There’s a very good chance he won’t even be incarcerated, and it’ll just cost a fortune and ruin the life of a woman who people are allegedly seeking to avenge (this again and again and again). If incarcerated it’ll be after a very expensive media heavy trial and it’ll cost a fortune to incarcerate him and keep him safe from other prisoners (can you imagine what the Aryans would do? A 76 year old foreign born Jewish holocaust survivor and rapist and rich besides- his life wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel- thus he has to be provided incredible security that no other prisoner is likely to receive) and all for the sake of justice- he destroyed a girl’s life.
Well in fact he didn’t destroy it. She recovered. Now she pleads that that media destroyed her life and the best thing to do for her is NOT to proceed. But in the name of Justice let’s destroy her life again, we know what’s best.
How is this justice?
But justice isn’t about just doing whatever the victim wants. Prosecuting a murderer won’t bring back their victim, but we do it anyway.
I don’t agree that justice is about doing what the victim wants.
Consider the cases in which wealthy and influential celebrities indulge in a little good old fashioned rape. Normally, people caught committing such crimes do hard time, and no-one I think would deny that this crime deserves hard time.
Hiowever, the truly rich and influential have resources denied to the rest of us - in particular, the ability to pay off or otherwise exert influence on the victims. Giving the victim the power, in essence, to “forgive” the crime after prosecution would be a procedure simply begging to be abused. I hardly think any truly wealthy man would prefer years in jail to a simple pay-off; how does that square with equality under the law?
In my opinion the wealthy and powerful should do the same hard time for crimes as the rest of us, were we guilty. The deck is already stacked in their favour somewhat, as they can afford the best representation etc.
To my mind (and again it is just my opinion) it sends a very important message not to forgive those fleeing justice in such cases. Otherwise, the obvious message is that fleeing justice (if you have the resources to do it) is basically a good idea.
As for the jollies gotten by right-wing media commentators, I’m basically indifferent to that: my solution is not to watch them or let them influence my opinion on matters of justice, either way.
We don’t do this sort of thing just for the victim though. You say that, “It’s not about the victim, it’s about the decriers.” and you’re partly right. The decriers are members of society and they have a right to ensure that the most horrible of crimes against society are punished and that they are punished consistently.
There are many cases where a young teenager consented to sex with a much older partner, never regretting the encounter, yet the older partner was still prosecuted for statutory rape (I’m not talking about Romeo/Juliet situations, but where the other partner is well into adulthood). Domestic violence victims forgive their attackers all the time, often before they’ve even stopped bleeding. What the victim wants isn’t the end-all be-all determining factor in prosecuting cases of violence or sexual assault because society has a stake in the matter as well. This is ignoring the issue of a convicted criminal fleeing sentencing, which I think is inarguably in society’s best interest to enforce.
It doesn’t matter how good his lawyers are. He’s already been convicted. The public outcry is about more than child rape (though what’s wrong with being against child rape?), but against the idea that he should be allowed to escape punishment simply because he was able to run away for a long time. That didn’t fly for Sarah Jane Olson, why should it fly for him?
[quote=“justrob, post:142, topic:511742”]
I don’t know how much blame to put on the mother for letting her go of unsupervised with a 44 year old man but after it happened she showed her support by giving up a possible carreer to take her daughter and leave Hollywood.QUOTE]
Or she realized that was now impossible, cut her losses and left. I wonder how much the undisclosed settlement she received from Polanski was?
A bit of a simulpost from the Pit Thread, but since it’s relevant equally in both places I’ll do it anyway.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once told an idealistic young lawyer who argued that in “a court of justice” he would win that
In my opinion the victim’s right is the course of justice. Prosecuting Polanski is done for the law. Personally I side with justice.
Certainly not enough, even if it was in the millions. Though there is no price that he can pay in money or in time served.
Thirty-one years ago in a case that was as recently as this year was ruled to have been characterized by “substantial misconduct” and “prosecutorial misconduct”. I don’t think a skilled lawyer would have a hard time getting a new trial.
Depends on what exactly he did. Polanski may not have mounted a vigorous defense in the first court case, but he was also expecting a good plea agreement. The fact that the victim accepted the undisclosed settlement raises serious questions to me. Specifically, this reeks of a con job that went wrong, a mark that got violent, and both parties dealing the reprecussions afterward.
Are you making this shit up from whole cloth for your own amusement or are you fundamentally incapable of basic reading comprehension?
Stranger
Are you sure it was ruled to have those things? All I have seen is a judge giving his opinion on what he saw in a movie.
Who ruled on these things? In what court? I’m not aware of prosecutorial misconduct even being alleged at all.
I would just like to point out that this quote in Sampiro’s post was actually ZPG Zealot. Not me.
That has long been an accusation, but for argument’s sake even if it is true that her mother set him up on an Errol Flynn Badger Game (which if she did or didn’t I wouldn’t know) Samantha was 13. At that age she couldn’t even get free records from Columbia House and IF she was the daughter of a con-artist (emphasis added because I’ve no knowledge whatever of her mother) she almost certainly went along at the demand of her mother and still did not deserve what happened to her. Plus even if she was the 13 year old daughter of Satan and Mata Hari, no reasonable man could have been enticed to drug and repeatedly rape her.
This is what I found. Posted in the BBQ Pit thread.
I didn’t see when this happened in the whole timeframe.
and as I said there …
By being a scofflaw, Polanski showed disrespect for the California court system. He in turn will get no consideration from that system. He’ll do time.
The California prison system already has facilities to deal with high profile prisoners, senior citizen prisoners, and non-Aryan white prisoners. Phil Spector’s a Jew, and a senior citizen, and they’ve found a place for him. The added cost for Polanski is trivial relative to the cost of the whole prison system in Cali.
My apologies: a misreading and mistake on my part, but I promise not an effort to defraud. Prosecutorial misconduct was Polanski’s allegation in the hearing that occurred earlier this year. Since google is understandably bringing up mostly stories from this week I’m going to go to Lexis to find pre-arrest in Switzerland details- will be back.
Sorry for the double post but one thing I forgot to mention about the quote from Answer.com is I fail to see how Polanski has suffered in any way because of this? Having to spend time in your mansion in France and being careful about what countries you travel instead of being in prison is suffering?