Convicted child rapist and fugitive from justice Roman Polanski was freed this morning by a Swiss court, on the grounds that the American request for extradition might not have been sentenced to more than 90 days in jail, and that he really didn’t think he’d be arrested despite, you know, being a fugitive:
In rejecting the extradition request from the United States, the Swiss ministry cited two factors: first, the Swiss said, the U.S. had failed to provide the records of a January hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court that would have shown the judge in charge of the Polanski case in 1977 agreed that “the 42 days of detention spent by Roman Polanski in the psychiatric unit of a Californian prison represented the whole term of imprisonment he was condemned to.”
Second, the Swiss said, when Mr. Polanski traveled in September 2009 to the Zurich Film Festival where he was arrested as he arrived at the airport, he did so in “good faith” that “the journey would not entail any legal disadvantages for him.” The Swiss justice ministry noted that Mr. Polanski had been staying regularly in Switzerland since 2006, and though “he was registered in the Swiss registry of wanted persons, he was never controlled by the Swiss authorities.”
Well, that’s nice. I’m going to use that should I ever be arrested on an outstanding warrant. “Judge,” I’m going to say, “when I went to the mall, it was on good faith that I wouldn’t be arrested for my outstanding warrant for punching a mime. I mean, I wasn’t arrested yesterday. So that means that the warrant doesn’t count. So there.”
Obviously, this is a defeat for those of us who view child rapists as people who deserve punishment, and a defeat for the rule of law. It’s also a defeat for Roman Polanski’s legacy, though Polanski today is, I’m sure, ready to invite Bernard-Henri Lévy over to his posh Paris home for a big freedom party. This was Polanski’s last, best chance to get this over with, to pay his debt to society, to eliminate the “fugitive” part of “convicted fugitive child rapist.” He could have brought some closure to his victim, and maybe, just maybe, allowed the wound to heal. Instead, Polanski has guaranteed that when he dies, he will be remembered as much for assaulting a child as for his film legacy.
Polanski will always be remembered as a child rapist who, I assume, will die in exile. That’s his choice. It’s just too bad that the Swiss courts had to agree.
I know you’re being serious but unless you have celebrity star power you haven’t told us about that will fail. Fail pretty hard.
And what’s with the bear in the picture? Did I miss a new internet meme?
@Danny – that’s Pedobear. Apparently there’s a lot of things that begin at 4chan that escape into the internet.
Ooops. That should have been:
I know you’re not being serious but unless you have celebrity star power you haven’t told us about that will fail. Fail pretty hard.
I’m sure you noticed that but I just wanted to make sure it was clear.
Granted, one shakesville commenter said this may also be a fail on the part of the U.S. to keeping court documents secret:
“The Swiss authorities appear to be blaming it on the US Department of Justice:
From a press release from the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police:
In the framework of the extradition proceedings, on 3rd March 2010, the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) asked the USA authorities to substantiate the extradition request by supplying the records of a hearing carried out on 26th January 2010 by the public prosecutor, Roger Gunson, who was in charge of the case in the seventies. The records should prove that, in a meeting held on 19th September 1977, the judge in charge at the time had expressly assured the representatives of the parties that the 42 days of detention spent by Roman Polanski in the psychiatric unit of a Californian prison represented the whole term of imprisonment he was condemned to. If this were the case, Roman Polanski would actually have already served his sentence and therefore both the proceedings on which the US extradition request is founded and the request itself would have no foundation.
The request of the FOJ to supply the records was rejected by the US Justice Department on 13th May 2010 due to a court ruling, according to which the records had to be kept secret. In these circumstances it is not possible to exclude with the necessary certainty that Roman Polanski has already served the sentence he was condemned to at the time and that the extradition request is undermined by a serious fault.
I don’t quite know what’s up with that, but I suspect this might be a tandem fail. The US putting keeping its hearing records secret over extraditing a criminal does not exactly scream “high priority on justice.”
You’re right that Polanski’s a scumbag. But the ‘freed on technicality’/’defeat for the rule of law’ stuff is nonsense. The fact he was free after the US refused to provide evidence against him isn’t a ‘technicality’, and it’s not defeat for the rule of law when people aren’t extradited based on secret evidence. You won’t like me saying it; but he was freed because the evidence against him wasn’t strong enough in a decision which upholds the rule of law.
Feminist are 100% morally right on this. But I’m disconcerted by their willingness to throw due process under the bus.
He’s French/Polish.
After his recent arrest, I actually thought that he had a chance of actually being convicted, once and for all.
Was that a naive hope?
(It’s not even that I didn’t see this coming, because this decision doesn’t surprise me, unfortunately, but I didn’t see it as inevitable either.)
Agree 100% with James.
Why should rape, and fugitive rapists, be just a concern of feminists?
Only in the USA, and then, for no more than a generation.
I understood your point up until the sentence above.
Why are Feminists being singled out as though they are the only people who don’t agree with this verdict?