For the one or two people on the planet who don’t know, this case was prosecuted in Los Angeles County so it’s California law with the usual sprinkling of stardust.
Here’s my question.
Polanski pleads out to one charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, and is ordered to spend 90 days for psychiatric evaluation at Chino. However, Judge Rittenband grants him a 90-day stay so he can go to Europe and finish a movie on which he’s working. Then he’ll return and do the 90 days at Chino. The terms of the stay allow for him to travel abroad and work.
He goes to France, and at some point, makes a side trip to Munich, where he attends Oktoberfest with friends, including some women. A German photographer snaps him at a table loaded with beer, and with a beautiful young German on either arm.
Back in L.A., someone (I think the prosecutor) shows Rittenband the photo and the latter goes ballistic. He wants to rescind the tacit agreement that the 90 days at Chino would end up being the total punishment, which seems basically reasonable given the circumstances of the crime. But what I don’t understand is, by what right could Rittenband take judicial notice of him having a few laughs at the Oktoberfest?? He was exercising his rights on a stay of sentence. He wasn’t an inmate on work-release. It’s not as if he was legally obligated to spend eight hours each day working on his film, and then report to a local jail until it was time to get up the next morning.
Until I saw the documentary I didn’t know that he did come back to California for that trip, and he did spend a few weeks at Chino, but was released early. Why isn’t this fact more commonly known?
Here is an account that confirms some of what Spectre of Pithecanthropus writes but disputes other parts. No idea of its accuracy in its details.
According to this account (by an author who has written about Polanski), Polanski was ordered to spend 90 days in Chino for psych evaluation and fulfilled part of that term before being given permission to go to the South Pacific to work on a movie. While traveling, he stops in Munich and is photographed having a good time with pretty women. He then comes back to the US, finishes the Chino term, and appears again before the court.
There’s no indication in this account that the court considered the Munich photos. I don’t know what the recent film cites in this regard.
According to this author, Polanski argued that the judge had implied that the 90 days in Chino would be the full sentence, and when it’s apparent after Chino that the court intends to impose jail time as well, Polanski flees for good. The author says that there is nothing in the file to corroborate Polanski’s assertion of an agreement or understanding. The notion of a “tacit understanding” seems out of place in a criminal plea agreement, and it’s certainly self-serving on Polanski’s part.
According to both the prosecutor and Polanski’s lawyer (both of whom seem to be very honorable and decent guys), Judge Rittenband was inordinately concerned about his appearance in the press. Polanski turned himself in for the “90-day” psychiatric evaluation at Chino, was determined not to be a danger, and was released after 42 days with a recommendation for probation only.
After Polanski’s release, Rittenband agreed that he would be allowed to work in France for a year, that permission to be granted in a series of of 90-day stays. When the picture turned up, the judge felt that Polanski was thumbing his nose at him, and ordered him back to the US. When he was back, the judge reneged on the agreement to let him stay abroad for a year, and said he was going to sentence him right away.
Rittenband proposed another deal under which Polanski would serve the remaining 48 days of the 90-day evaluation period, plus some arrangement having to do with leaving the country and agreeing not to come back. (I forget the details, but they’re described in the film.) This part of it was illegal: he had no right to make such a condition, a point that the prosecutor and the defense lawyer agreed on.
Since Rittenband had already broken one deal, Polanski realized he had no reason to trust him a second time, and left the country the night before the second sentencing hearing was to be held. He has never returned since then.