See post 59, this thread.
For convenience reproduced here:
Emphasis added.
So are is the California State Attorney’s office Very Bad or Evil for not bothering to pursue extradition proceedings for the last 15 years?
So he should be extradited because he did a really naughty thing, but it might be okay if he did a moderately or slightly naughty thing?
I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, though, because 15 years ago or today, Roman Polanski is still a violent offender.
Are these supposed to be my words? He’s a violent felon and an escaped convict. Rape. Not statutory rape. He coerced a little girl, drugged her, and then raped her. I don’t know what you’re getting at with your “moderately or slightly naughty thing.” I don’t care, because there’s nothing like that in evidence.
Why do you keep pointing this out? Everybody already knows it? Are you titillated by the thought, and want others to discuss it in more detail with you?
How many times will you say the same thing?
As many times as it takes people to stop trying to argue false, or to be more accurate, irrelevant, equivalencies. And because, for all the bullshit political analysis and hand-waving, it’s the absolute heart of the matter. There’s no covering it up with verbiage.
Of course it matters. People are slinging feces at the Swiss for declining to get involved in a squabble between two other countries. Why aren’t people pissed at the state attorneys who let him go for this long?
What I’m getting that is that you are repeating his crime as though it means something. Your earlier post implied that this is a matter of principle, but your argument is that extraditing Polanski was a moral imperative because he raped a little girl rather than some other crime.
I have no idea, and it doesn’t matter.
It’s both, of course. He raped her, then violated his (extremely light) sentence. He’s in the wrong for doing so, and there’s a legal principle involved as well.
Clearly, it does matter, because there is a thread about the Swiss, which you are participating in, and there isn’t a thread about anyone else (except Polanski himself).
He had not been sentenced at the time he fled; he didn’t violate any sentence. He was ordered by the court to attend 90 days of psychiatric evaluation, which is not a custodial sentence.
He violated the conditions of his bail.
What legal principle is that?
What’s bad, very bad, is your assertion (over and over again) that the rape was “violent”, as well as your assertion that he was convicted of a violent crime. Neither are correct.
Polanski gave the young girl some champagne (which, speaking in terms of alcohol effect is pretty weak sauce), a Quaalude, and by virtue of his adult status and superior size forced himself upon the girl. But he didn’t hit her, he didn’t kick her, he didn’t grab her by the hair and yank her into the bedroom. He forced himself upon her by virtue of his adult status and large size, and then ejaculated into her anus as a birth control measure. I doubt that much penetration was involved, and therefore much of the pain one might expect from forceful anal rape would not be involved.
And he wasn’t convicted of a violent crime. He pled guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse.
I hate it when you make me post stuff that sounds like I’m defending him, but facts is facts, and the fact is that there’s nothing in Samanta Geimer’s testimony to support the allegation of violent rape, at least not in the way that most people would think of it, and it’s undeniable that Polanski was not convicted of a violent crime. The things you’re saying are simply not true.
It doesn’t matter. I have no opinions on the LA prosecutor’s motives, other than that justice has obviously been long delayed, and looks to be delayed again, because of Switzerland’s obstructionism.
Ah yes. My apologies. Not that it matters, since you are no more free to skip out on your sentencing than you are to to flee afterward.
Have you completely taken leave of your senses? She protested. He forced himself on her. That’s the very definition of violent.
You wouldn’t consider somebody shoving something into your rectum against your will violent? Are you absolutely insane?
Ah, but there is a matter of legal principle at stake!
You know that the extradition treaty (like most) specifically excludes political and military prosecutions, right? I don’t know about you, but reopening this case 20 years after the last attempt to extradite him smells awfully political to me, especially when the victim has officially requested that the matter be dropped.
You know what? What he did is irrelevant, because however heinous his crime, the rule of law is still more important. If Switzerland is violating the treaty by not extraditing him, then they are in the wrong. If the US did not have its ducks in a row, then Swtizerland was right not to extradite.
If Switzerland is not permitted under its law to extradite someone in this situation, then they did the right thing. Maybe that law needs changing, but it shouldn’t be ignored.
And hearing the US lecture about extradition of major criminals to allied countries rings a little hollow to most British people I know, given that IRA murderers have been allowed to walk US streets with impunity.
I’m sorry, I will be completely silent until I personally correct each and every wrong my country has ever done. It’s only fair, right?
That’s exactly what I was requiring, dipshit. :rolleyes:
When the OP criticizes Switzerland as a country for this single act of failing to extradite someone the OP decides should be extradited, don’t you think it is somewhat relevant to the situation that the US has historically refused to extradite murderers back to a country it considers to be a close ally? Isn’t that in some way relevant to the degree of outrage?
I continue to be amazed at the propensity for false equivalence around here. OF COURSE IRA murderers should be extradited back to the UK. If they haven’t been, and there is a legal international warrant out for them, then they absolutely should be. That in no way means that Polanski should NOT be extradited to the US. I mean, wtf? 
There is no such thing as a “legal international warrant”. Interpol occasionally files Red Notices, which are requests for countries to arrest specific individuals, but those are not warrants.
According to Polanski it was consentual sex.
When in doubt, the semantic argument will bury 'em, even if it’s already been pretty well established that Switzerland torpedoed the US warrant intentionally by requesting that the US withhold information, and then claiming that extradition was impossible without the aforementioned information.
Just because it was also statutory rape does not mean that it wasn’t also violent rape.