I Love Me, Vol. I: Wait, are you saying this isn’t necessarily rape (pending further evidence) because:
a) He wasn’t convicted of a crime called “rape”
or
b) There was no outright violence, only coersion
or
c) We don’t have adequate impartial information to characterize the act that took place, so “unlawful sex” is a more accurate placeholder
or
d) Something else.
?
Just some clarification of your position would be helpful.
Have you read the facts of the case? This wasn’t a matter of RP fucking the shit out of an underage girl who was a willing participant (whether or not a 13 year old can really consent is neither here nor there), this is a man drugging someone, refusing to take her home when she begged him to do so, kissing her even though she begged him to stop, going down on her as she said no and asked him to stop, having vaginal intercourse with her as she said no and asked him to stop, he asked if he could have anal sex with her and when she said no did it anyway until he was finished.
That’s not consent. Regardless of age, that’s rape.
Remember, he never denied any of this happened. In fact, the only comment he said a year later was something to the effect that everyone wants to fuck little girls. C’mon.
Something that imbecile will do is interrupt her guest the instant he mentions the Polanski documentary by yelling "You mean the documentary made by Woody Allen who married his underage daughter?"
No, he didn’t mean that, you insipid airhead! If she were underage, he couldn’t have married her!
Cripes, what an idiot!
Oops…make that stepdaughter.
Way to ruin a fine rant there, Starv. :smack:
It seems a bit silly to say we can’t talk about rape until a conviction on that charge is obtained in a trial.
There’s a misconception here. In the US an accused is entitled to a presumption of innocence in legal proceedings. This means, among other things, that the burden of proof lies with the prosecution, and that a defendant’s failure to testify cannot be construed as evidence of guilt.
It’s definitely a stretch to go from this to saying in a random online discussion that Polanski presumably did not commit rape. We are quite free to consider that question on the evidence available, which in this case includes a detailed, contemporaneous statement from the victim, and (so far as I can tell) no counterclaim from any source at any time. To believe that Polanski was guilty of no more than what he pled to, we must believe that the girl repeatedly lied through her teeth, and that he never saw fit to raise so much as a peep of objection to such lies.
Way to add a whole lot of stupid to the discussion. It’s pretty clear you haven’t read the rest of the thread and are just coming in here to mouth off, because this thread really isn’t debating the difference between statutory rape and rape (or maybe you just need your intellectual tools sharpened). We all know what he plead guilty to. We also know the rest of the details of the case and since we’re not a fucking jury we’re can draw whatever conclusions we want. So if BrandonR wants to call Roman Polanski a child rapist, then good for him and boo frickin hoo if he wasn’t actually brought up on that charge.
Roman Polanski is a child rapist. We know this because he confessed and was convicted.
What Polanski did was rape. In this instance, it is the same.
How about fucking a thirteen year old in the ass while she begs you not to?
Polanski confessed to doing it, and skipped the country because he was afraid to go to prison. Which makes no sense - if fucking someone in the ass without their consent isn’t so bad, sending Polanski somewhere where he runs the risk of getting fucked in the ass without his consent isn’t so bad.
I grant you, they probably won’t ply him with champagne and Quaaludes first, but then again, he isn’t thirteen, so it all works out.
Regards,
Shodan
How about 1460+ days before her 18th birthday? Is there a point at which you think the responsibility for the sex lies totally on the adult?
I just ran the 86 names on the Polanski Petition through Wikipedia.
28 of the signatories (24.8%) were French
7 were Italians (6.02%)
6 were Americans (5.6%)
Only six seems to have been women, although I may have missed a few. Remarkably, sixteen of these people had no entry on the English Wikipedia. That is 13.76%.
Of course other people have said pro-Polanski things (Whoppi Goldberg), but using the list of signatures as a database does not show a huge amount of support for the guy in Hollywood.
Apparently the “statute of limitations” doesn’t apply in this case. In what sort of situations does that principle apply?
When you don’t run.
See here’s the thing, #1 He never actually got any sentence, harsh, plea bargain or otherwise. #2 By running he no longer, the presumption of innocence that most suspects get is much hazier. Not necessarily because he ran and that indicates he is guilty, but because his running has ruined almost any attempt to fairly determine the truth of the matter. His actions, his consequences.
See his running and “hiding” for thrity years has totally corrupted the determination of guilt and it DID NOT allow the process to work its way through. If he got a raw deal, iff he wasn’t guilty, there are remedies for that, but you cannot unilaterally decide it is “unfair” and leave. That just does not cut it.
Limitations applies when a charge has not been brought for X years after an alleged crime has been committed. The reason for limitations is the perception that it is unfair to subject defendants to defending themselves against a very old charge, as the evidence may no longer exist, relevant witnesses have died, etc. A defendant should not be prejudiced by the passing of time to such an extent that they have no realistic chance of defending themselves (note that not all crimes are subject to limitations, the most serious crimes are in some jurisdictions not).
None of these issues though have any application where the charge was brought promptly after the crime and the offender pled guilty, then fled. There is in that case no doubt that the crime was in fact committed and any “prejudice” to the defendant’s defense was of his own making.
Yeah . . . NO HE DID NOT confess to “fucking [her] in the ass without ][her] consent.” Please pay attention. He confessed to having sex with someone the law deems incapable of giving consent to a sexual act (but capable of giving consent to lots of other stuff – I am not here to argue the distinction between statutory rape and forcible rape, it should be obvious, just requesting that we observe it exists).
Diossa by not admitting it, he has effectively denied it, has he not? Or are you saying that in every instance where someone pleads to a lesser offense, they are nonetheless admitting the totality of the charges? As I said, if he’s getting good counsel, he’s been told not to discuss/admit anything outside a courtroom, even after his flight. The underlying offense is one thing, the flight another. The existence of the second does not prove the occurrence of the first (though, without further explanation, it’s damning - we have an explanation; you might not put much stock in it, but it’s there).
Look, for all I care, you guys can light the pitchforks and sharpen the torches for this guy, but if you do so on the basis that he’s confessed to drugging and anal raping a 13 year old you wrong. Plain and simple.
Here’s a link to a clip by Rex Murphy, on the CBC, opining about the subject.
Reality doesn’t work that way. He copped a plea, that’s not a "denial’ of anything.
The issue here is not the legal one of whether or not he’s pled guilty to drugging and forcible rape, but whether in fact committed those acts - not being a court of law, we are perfectly free to judge him on that, and conclude, based on available evidence, that he’s a scumbag.
The notion that he’s paying careful attention to his lawyer’s advice in “not denying” the drugging and forcible rape when it is obvious he never intended to face the music of a trial doesn’t pass the laugh test. Ultimately, he is of course free to civilly charge anyone publishing wrongful details of his actions with libel - something he’s famously done before:
Consider the difference in damage to reputation between “making sexual advances” at someone, and forcibly drugging and raping someone. If the latter were not true, Mr. Polanski would have the makings of the libel case of the century, given the number of people who have published articles claiming he did it.
Yes, but there’s an ocean of difference between “he didn’t confess it” and “it isn’t true.” If we sharpen our forks on the basis that he did drug and anally rape a 13-year-old, I think that’s reasonable. Based on his plea there are really only two possibilities:
There is little reason to believe that she was correct about the sex but lied plausibly about the other aspects. One would expect a lying 13-y-o to have come up with a different story.
If I’m on a jury re-trying the man, I’ll suspend my assumptions and try to evaluate only the evidence presented. Otherwise, I’ll use Occam’s shaving equipment and presume guilt.
No. You’re wrong. The issue that I raised here is whether people are correct when they say he admitted to drugging and anally raping a 13 year old girl not whether the public thinks he did those things. He has not admitted to drugging and anally raping a 13 year old girl. Those who claim or imply he has are mistaken or lying.
If you cannot understand why his lawyers would advise him against talking about this, I am not inclined to help you. I think it’s obvious. If you cannot see the difference between responding to allegations of sexual advances that are no the subject of a criminal proceding versus responding to allegations that are the subject of a criminal proceeding, again I am not inclied to help you. Also obvious.
The issue that most people actually care about is whether he actually did drug and anally rape a 13 year old girl.
The fact that he has copped a plea to having statutorially raped that girl is, in the presence of a damning witness statement which clearly shows that she alleges he drugged and raped her, and in the absense of any hint from him in the 30 years he’s been on the lam that he hasn’t, pretty good evidence that he did, in fact, drug and rape her.
Thus, while it is technically correct that his copping a plea to the lesser offence isn’t an admission that he committed the more heinous offences, this is a distinction quite without merit, since in all likelihood he did do it, and that’s what folks actually care about.
And yes, I cannot understand why his lawyers would instruct him to “not deny” he committed the offence, once he’s fled the jurisdiction and sworn never to return. How on earth can he possibly prejudice his case more by a denial? And why on earth should he care?
Admittedly it would be difficult to charge people with libel in his situation - but that is, of course, a problem entirely of his own making. If he had stayed and taken his punishment, and someone accused him after of having drugged and raped her, he’d be totally free to sue them - assuming he could prove on a balance of probabilities he didn’t do it, and the other libel exceptions (fair comment etc.) do not apply.
Can’t see the clip, but one of the comments made me think – ‘But really, who cares what actors think about this case?’
Instead of finding out which actors support him, let’s ask 13-year-old girls what they think should be done with him.
I have never said it wasn’t true or that it could only be true if he admitted it. What I said was that people saying he admitted to drugging/anal raping are wrong. If my frustration over that constantly reemerging falsehood is puzzling to you, look no further than Shodan’s post upthread.