{"id":10474,"date":"2010-07-12T07:41:36","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T14:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10474"},"modified":"2010-07-12T07:41:36","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T14:41:36","slug":"fugitive-child-rapist-freed-on-technicality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10474","title":{"rendered":"Fugitive Child Rapist Freed on Technicality"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u00a0might not have been sentenced to more than 90 days in jail<\/a>, and that he really didn\u2019t think he\u2019d be arrested despite, you know, being a fugitive:<\/p>\n

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 \u201cthe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201cgood faith\u201d that \u201cthe journey would not entail any legal disadvantages for him.\u201d The Swiss justice ministry noted that Mr. Polanski had been staying regularly in Switzerland since 2006, and though \u201che was registered in the Swiss registry of wanted persons, he was never controlled by the Swiss authorities.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Well, that\u2019s nice. I\u2019m going to use that should I ever be arrested on an outstanding warrant. \u201cJudge,\u201d I\u2019m going to say, \u201cwhen I went to the mall, it was on good faith that I wouldn\u2019t be arrested for my outstanding warrant for punching a mime. I mean, I wasn\u2019t arrested yesterday. So that means that the warrant doesn\u2019t count. So there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s also a defeat for Roman Polanski\u2019s legacy, though Polanski today is, I\u2019m sure, ready to invite Bernard-Henri L\u00e9vy over to his posh Paris home for a big freedom party. This was Polanski\u2019s last, best chance to get this over with, to pay his debt to society, to eliminate the \u201cfugitive\u201d part of \u201cconvicted fugitive child rapist.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Polanski will always be remembered as a child rapist who, I assume, will die in exile. That\u2019s his choice. It\u2019s just too bad that the Swiss courts had to agree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u00a0might not have been sentenced to more than 90 days in jail, and that he … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crossposted-on-tada","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}