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On September 28 2009 21:27 Slow Motion wrote:
You guys shouldn't put too much weight on what the victim wants. The purpose of criminal law isn't to get "justice" for one particular victim, but to protect society through deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation. That's why the government, not victims, prosecutes defendants on behalf of the people.
If Polanski had sex with or raped a 13 year old, he should be sentenced accordingly, even if Geimer is ready to move on. It's not about her.
Excellent point.
If he felt that the judge illegally changed the plea bargain then he should have gone about trying to get it quashed without fleeing the state,
Hence
"In May, a Californian judge dismissed Polanski's bid because he failed to appear in court."
What he tried to do was get have his cake and eat it. If his appeal succeeded he could return to the US whenever he wanted, if it failed then he wouldn't do jail time since he wouldn't be in the country, that's a pretty asymmetric outcome. No judge would agree to hear a case in that situation.
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On September 28 2009 21:12 pubbanana wrote:
He was a Holocaust survivor, his wife was murdered by Charles Manson, he had sex with a thirteen year old girl, and he is an award-winning film director. I would be happy to be able to say just one of those things.
you must hate your wife
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On September 28 2009 22:34 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2009 21:12 pubbanana wrote:
He was a Holocaust survivor, his wife was murdered by Charles Manson, he had sex with a thirteen year old girl, and he is an award-winning film director. I would be happy to be able to say just one of those things. you must hate your wife
Probably because she isn't 13.
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On September 28 2009 22:45 Energies wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2009 22:34 BlackJack wrote:On September 28 2009 21:12 pubbanana wrote:
He was a Holocaust survivor, his wife was murdered by Charles Manson, he had sex with a thirteen year old girl, and he is an award-winning film director. I would be happy to be able to say just one of those things. you must hate your wife Probably because she isn't 13.
hahaha
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As a legal traditionalist, I would be very happy if he were to go to prison.
And lol at the person who suggested China's prison system is about reform.
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Bearded Elder29906 Posts
Although I'm a Polish I don't care what will happen to him to be honest. He should go to prison, although it happend 30 years ago, on the other hand he probably won't, because there are many important people, who are supporting him ;-)
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On September 28 2009 22:15 Not_A_Notion wrote:
Hence
"In May, a Californian judge dismissed Polanski's bid because he failed to appear in court."
What he tried to do was get have his cake and eat it. If his appeal succeeded he could return to the US whenever he wanted, if it failed then he wouldn't do jail time since he wouldn't be in the country, that's a pretty asymmetric outcome. No judge would agree to hear a case in that situation.
A documentary published I believe last year talked about a significant number of problems on the prosecution's side, including for the judge (who actually admitted to f-ing the whole thing up) and for the prosecutor, who apparently did a lot of back-stage manipulating. A lot of people think there's a fair chance that, especially now, if the case were to be re-examined, it'd be dismissed on the grounds of unfair practice/ruling. The irony that most people see here is that by being arrested, Polanski will probably finally have his case dismissed.
Incidentally the reason why he didn't show up in court is because he and his lawyers decided that the risk of arrest by stepping on US shores was too great compared to the probability of the case being dismissed, and so he opted to just stay away forever. Clearly enough places were sympathetic to his cause that he was able to roam for 30 years.
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For France's reaction:
The French culture and communications minister, Frederic Mitterrand, said he "learned with astonishment" of Polanski's arrest. He expressed solidarity with Polanski's family and said "he wants to remind everyone that Roman Polanski benefits from great general esteem" and has "exceptional artistic creation and human qualities."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/28/zurich.roman.polanski.arrested/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn
I wonder what would happen if a poor black guy from South Central did all the things Polanski did. How much sympathy would he get from all these people? Clearly the rule France wants is: if you've contributed artistically to humanity, you can rape 13 year old girls and get away with it. Time to send in my application to Julliard!
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On September 28 2009 23:47 Slow Motion wrote:
I wonder what would happen if a poor black guy from South Central did all the things Polanski did. How much sympathy would he get from all these people? Clearly the rule France wants is: if you've contributed artistically to humanity, you can rape 13 year old girls and get away with it. Time to send in my application to Julliard!
I'm not really defending Polanski but...
Polanski was never accused of nor convicted of "forced sex;" he was accused of and convicted of statutory rape (consentual sex with an underaged), which tends to carry a considerably more lenient punishment (yes, even more lenient than dogfighting, ala Michael Vick). On top of this he pled guilty, only to have the judge back of that (how often does THAT happen?). Obviously he would still have needed to take the... 40 days? That he pled guilty for.
France, I believe, is largely taking the side of "he's been a fugitive for 30 years, fugitive for 30 years > 40 days in prison. For the most part, a significant number of people *worldwide* agree to some extent with this sentiment. The kicker here is that while a number of people in the US would like to let him go, this has also been elevated to a global, implicatively politically charged (although every party denies it) event. A US fugitive was arrested in Switzerland, and there are motions underway to transfer him to the US. This is while Switzerland politically bickers with the US - can you say, working favours?
Which would mean that he would be turned pariah for global politics.
That's the other side of this; France and Poland I believe are adamantly against that happening.
Of course they can't SAY that they're 1) defending a guy who pled guilty to statutory rape and 2) say Switzerland and the US are making a pariah out of a dude for political purposes.
I don't know for sure, obviously, so a lot of this is just guesswork from piecing together a bunch of articles :<
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On September 28 2009 23:57 Southlight wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2009 23:47 Slow Motion wrote:
I wonder what would happen if a poor black guy from South Central did all the things Polanski did. How much sympathy would he get from all these people? Clearly the rule France wants is: if you've contributed artistically to humanity, you can rape 13 year old girls and get away with it. Time to send in my application to Julliard! Polanski was never accused of nor convicted of "forced sex;" he was accused of and convicted of statutory rape (consentual sex with an underaged), which tends to carry a considerably more lenient punishment (yes, even more lenient than dogfighting, ala Michael Vick). On top of this he pled guilty, only to have the judge back of that (how often does THAT happen?). Obviously he would still have needed to take the... 40 days? That he pled guilty for.
how "lenient" the charge ends up being is beside the point. he was accused of fucking a 13 year old, pled guilty, and never served a sentence. that's unjust and unfair. the fact that he's been able to get away with it for so long entirely undermines our system of law in terms of hypocrisy and double standards. oh, you fucked (and were suspected of raping) a 13 year old. statuatory rape. Oh, what's that? you're a famous movie director? oh how silly of us to even attempt to convict you! it reminds me of our old primitive days where kings/nobles couldn't be convicted of any crime and were "above the law". have we as humans even come any further?
the situation completely sickens me.
Holy shit.
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From the US perspective, this is not some simple "political" situation.
If there was prosecutorial misconduct, then Polanski should have appealed the judgment to a higher court. Instead, he fled the country.
The US's political purpose here is to try to uphold the integrity of our legal process and to avoid the precedent that you can avoid the judgment of the court, not by appealing, by just by running away to a foreign country. Other countries have to respect the rights of the US and honor our warrants. The US justice system gets to determine if 30 years exile (living like a king and making movies) > 40 days of prison (and I admit they may), not France or the rest of the world.
If France had issued a warrant for George Lucas's arrest for a crime committed in France, I guarantee you the US would have shipped him to the French authorities, as awesome as Star Wars was.
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An arrest is different from a prison sentence. If France were to convict him of a crime and most of the US were to consider that conviction a sham, then I don't know the US would happily ship him over.
lazz, the issue is complicated NOW by the fact that the case would likely be dismissed on the grounds of unfair trial etc. etc., making it more than likely that he would have faced 0 time in prison. Not 40 days, 0. Had he man'd up 20something years ago and showed up in court that first time, he might have been freed then from this, but he opted not to, because he was afraid they'd just toss him in prison for that extended amount of time. Whatever, not gonna defend that.
However, there is now foreign policy bias being injected into the case, making it go from 40 days to 0 seconds to however long the US might be pressured into by Switzerland. Because the man has lived in Switzerland for a rather long time - that's why people are puzzled as to why Switzerland would catch him now. The timing is too blatant - what better time to pull out the Polanski wild card than when the Swiss need leverage over the US?
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On September 28 2009 21:19 Hazard wrote:
US law is perfect in a way that it can let the criminal go (if found not guilty) for long years and come back to punish him like ~20 years later (if his guilt gets proven later). What? No it can't, by law you can't be tried for the same crime if you've already been acquitted of it once, even if someone manages to prove you guilty 20 or so years later.
Unless you're talking about something else and I'm just misunderstanding (which I probably am since this has nothing to do with Polanski as he was found guilty).
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On September 29 2009 00:28 Slow Motion wrote:
From the US perspective, this is not some simple "political" situation.
If there was prosecutorial misconduct, then Polanski should have appealed the judgment to a higher court. Instead, he fled the country.
The US's political purpose here is to try to uphold the integrity of our legal process and to avoid the precedent that you can avoid the judgment of the court, not by appealing, by just by running away to a foreign country. Other countries have to respect the rights of the US and honor our warrants. The US justice system gets to determine if 30 years exile (living like a king and making movies) > 40 days of prison (and I admit they may), not France or the rest of the world.
If France had issued a warrant for George Lucas's arrest for a crime committed in France, I guarantee you the US would have shipped him to the French authorities, as awesome as Star Wars was.
because the US is known for its international commitment? if this happened with an 10 year old girl in Thailand, nobody would give a fk.
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Bwahahahahahahahahah.
In somewhat related news,
Poland okays forcible castration for pedophiles
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE58O4LE20090925?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews
Prime Minister Donald Tusk said late last year he wanted obligatory castration for pedophiles, whom he branded 'degenerates'. Tusk said he did not believe "one can use the term 'human' for such individuals, such creatures."
"Therefore I don't think protection of human rights should refer to these kind of events," Tusk also said.
Talk about hypocrisy.
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On September 28 2009 23:47 Slow Motion wrote:For France's reaction: The French culture and communications minister, Frederic Mitterrand, said he "learned with astonishment" of Polanski's arrest. He expressed solidarity with Polanski's family and said "he wants to remind everyone that Roman Polanski benefits from great general esteem" and has "exceptional artistic creation and human qualities." http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/28/zurich.roman.polanski.arrested/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnnI wonder what would happen if a poor black guy from South Central did all the things Polanski did. How much sympathy would he get from all these people? Clearly the rule France wants is: if you've contributed artistically to humanity, you can rape 13 year old girls and get away with it. Time to send in my application to Julliard!
It is funny to see Mitterrand defending him whereas he enjoyed (minors ?) Thai ladyboys at some point in his life hahaha.
Btw he is an idiot and this "art reason" is bs . The main reason why people are opposed to his arrest is because of the status of limitations ( 30 years max in France for murders if i remember correctly ).
However he raped her in the US and he is now in Switzerland. Hf Roman.
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The reason our government did this is because we're getting screwed over right now:
1) America completely pwns banking secrecy (aka. the reason our country has an economy, UBS, the biggest bank, has a balance sheet that's bigger than that of our entire economy). Our main asset is being taken away from us -> loss of jobs + national identity.
(this is not a comment about if what America has done to banking secrecy is RIGHT or WRONG, its just about how that affects our entire country)
2) Some of you may know that LibYa's president, Qaddafi, is pissed at us and wants our country absolved by its language groups (West/French speaking part to France, German + Swiss-German to Germany and Italian to Italy) and was going to ask the UN to help all because we arrested his son Hannibal last year in Geneva because he was abusing and bating his servants (which is very illegal in our country). He also cut off out oil for a bit, and took two Swiss Business-men hostage (he promised to return them back by September, they're still in Libya). All that to say we're under a lot of pressure.
3) Switzerland arrests Polanski in order to get into America's good books so that they will help vs. Libya.
As a personal note, its rather cynical that this guy is only arrested NOW when he fled his punishment (that he accepted to serve) 30 years ago. I mean, if they really wanted to arrest him, it could have been done a long time ago and not use him for political means.
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Our politics and "intellectuals" are a shame.
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EPT
