As much as I might want him to fry and want to be the one to pull the switch, I couldn’t begin to imagine what a nightmare it would be if the worst day of my life were fodder for millions of people to go over with a microscope — most of whom weren’t raped, who have not the SLIGHTEST fucking idea what living with it is like, all talking past the one person whose wishes and needs everyone else should be bending over backwards to protect.

He pleaded guilty as part of an agreement that the judge then set aside. But that should have automatically withdrawn the guilty plea as well, instead of just letting the judge sentence him based on it, but not bound by the guilty plea.

I blame him for raping the girl (and who knows how many others) but not for fleeing.

As to comments directed at me personally: this is not about me, you know. I hope y’all have a nice day, too.

And Mr Polanski IS a great film director: his art stands on its own merits, not on his personal merit – or lack thereof. Bad people can do good work, you know.

Justice in this case? IMO, the sentence which Mr. Polanski agreed to, plus a largish fine, or perhaps six to twelve months, for fleeing the jurisdiction.

Some of the above commentators above apparently mistake Mr Polanski’s fame or wealth for “power”.
IMO, to call Mr Polanski “powerful” is just weird.

OTOH, Mr Bush and the Federal “Justice” Officials who instigated a large system of torture camps and who went out of their way to start massive wars in far away countries: now there’s some actually powerful people, getting away with systematic mass murder.

But hey! Let’s talk about thirty-year old non-violent sex crimes, instead! I’m sure the US public will calmly and rationally discuss sex in their public fora.
Won’t they?

And while I empathize with the victim’s current wishes, what she wants is no longer the point. He pleaded guilty, he should do the time.

The mind boggles.

As far as the length of the sentence, he should get what any other pedophile rapist who drugs and fucks his victims without consent should get. I would hope that that is a couple of decades. On top of that, he should also stand trial for for fleeing the country. I am not a lawyer, but I am pretty sure fleeing the nation and refusing to serve your term in prison is illegal.

Like I said, I am no legal scholar, but between raping a 13 year old girl and fleeing the country, I bet that is enough time to put most 70+ year old men in jail for the rest of their lives. Good riddance.

You said exactly what I was thinking, except far more eloquently, and with less swears.

Ugly Canuck – you make me sad; it’s not about vengeance, it’s about the social contract – justice cannot be denied by the convicts decades long avoidance of his sentence; particularly in view of his social status.

As for the rape apologists, I’m sure Dante would find you the appropriate punishment.

So Whoopi was right it wasn’t rape-rape, it was Rape-Rape-Rape!

Wilton Dedge hates to think there might be guys languishing in prison waiting for DNA testing to prove their innocence.

“I’d love to raise $10,000 for them this year if I can,” Dedge said. “But it’s not going to be easy. Everyone’s hurting this year.”

WTF?

There are all kinds of mental illnesses that might make the sufferer more likely to commit these kinds of crime. If someone was, for example, a cluster B of the ASPD type, one would be incapable of empathy. That’s incapable of any empathy EVER. And one would not care about the sorts of limits that society, that other people would put on you. It would simply be a matter of doing what you could get away with doing. You would be very opportunistic about getting whatever your horrid twisted mind had determined was your need, at that moment, met.

And, of course, you’d be great at convincing people that you were a swell guy. You’d be all about manipulation. You’d have spent your life learning how to con family and friends, coworkers, neighbors and loved ones, so you could get what you’d want. You’d be very slick…

Wouldn’t care to diagnose Polanski. Don’t wish to even think of this for a moment longer. Just saying, there are these sorts of people, and yes, they can fool people. They are very manipulative.

At least some of the time, e.g. victim gets too drunk to say no, doesn’t say no at all, doesn’t resist a bit, doesn’t scream for help, clams up and stays silent after, the victim is kind of at fault for letting the rape continue.

Dude. That totally sounds like you are talking from personal experience.

You’ve creeped me right the fuck out.

Apologies for copypasta, but this seems like a good spot for this internet standby (every source I’ve found for it attributes it to another source; if you know the attribution, please do share):

SEXUAL ASSAULT PREVENTION TIPS THAT REALLY WORK

A lot has been said about how to prevent rape. Women should learn self-defense. Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark. Women shouldn’t have long hair and women shouldn’t wear short skirts. Women shouldn’t leave drinks unattended. F@^&, they shouldn’t dare to get drunk at all. Instead of that bull$#*+, how about:

If a woman is drunk, don’t rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don’t rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don’t rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don’t rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don’t rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you’re still hung up on, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don’t rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don’t rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don’t rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don’t rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don’t rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don’t rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don’t rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don’t rape her.
If your friend thinks it’s okay to rape someone, tell him it’s not, and that he’s not your friend.
If your “friend” tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there’s an unconscious woman upstairs and it’s your turn, don’t rape her, call the police and tell the guy he’s a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it’s not okay to rape someone.
Don’t tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don’t imply that she could have avoided it if she’d only done/not done x.
Don’t imply that it’s in any way her fault.
Don’t let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he “got some” with the drunk girl.
Don’t perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.

If you agree, re-post it. It’s that important.

Note:
This goes for any gendered rape, male on female or female on male or female on female or FTM on MTF or non gendered to dual gendered and so on and so forth….

-author unknown

I don’t think that justice will be done in this case. My intuition is that when the dust settles many of us are going to wish that Polanski had been left alone.

Those directors are defending Polanski because they are his friends. Plain and simple. The fact that they are famous is a symptom of the fact that the rapist in this case is famous. And if they want to make a case in defense of him, it’s not surprising that they point out his artistic achievements because those are more universally recognized and felt than “Hey, he’s really a good guy.” They are wrong to do so, but they are wrong in the same way that friends who come to the defense of any other criminal are wrong. If one of them happens to be a plumber, we don’t condemn the entire profession of plumbing.

Picking on Hollywood for low moral standards is too easy. Those stars live their lives publicly and sometimes they live them as poorly as the rest of us conduct ours.

The calls for justice are right on. Continue. Loudly. The broad demonization is not. Stop it. You lose credibility and weaken the real case.

That’s true, and that’s one of the reasons why I personally think that Polanski does need to be punished, even though it is unjust to Geimer. I just don’t think it’s right to say that we aren’t actually being unjust to her.

Also, as a rich white man, I can assure you that what is important here is that Polanski is a celebrity, not that he is a rich white man. No matter what they do, celebrities are always going to have some people defend them, by virtue of being celebrities.

@DesiredUsername: I agree that a person can recover fully and that it is important to defend that reality, however the irony is that I don’t think a person can easily recover in a society that doesn’t care, or that blames the victim. One of the major factors post-rape for whether a person will have PTSD is in how long it is before the survivor seeks professional help. That indicates to me that the survivor in a hostile environment is not going to fare well, whereas a survivor in a safe and caring environment will be able to make a lot of progress.

I agree, but I think too that it would be difficult to recover in a society that is safe and caring but negative, and that is the sort of society I feel many here are describing. Optimism is important. Both should be avoided; on the other hand, if attitudes like homestarrunner’s aren’t just trolling, then one side is admittedly much worse than the other.

@36: That “your life is over”, “you will always be terribly affected” attitude is what I dislike, and is the impression I seem to get from many essays, if rather toned down.

@Lauren, AndyHavens: Homestarrunner is either a troll intentionally trying to provoke such reactions in you, or a completely loony misogynist. Keep in mind that he recently had a post here claiming that IVF should be banned because it would lead to all males being killed or used for food. Are these sorts of attitudes actually widespread outside the internet and media? I hear loonies say these things all the time, but I don’t know anyone in the society around me who would support such views, and indeed, would not condemn them.

My point is that Americans display a strange kind of “hysteria” or perhaps “duality” when it comes to sex…and in criminal matters, they seem very very harsh in their sentencing, to boot.

And the “rape is a rape” line in the Article is just wrong. The Law does nothing but draw distinctions: that “rape is a rape” formulation demolishes any distinctions between cases, and with it, I fear, Justice. Just like mandatory minimum sentences do – they are designed to do just that.

And I wonder if this case is about Justice, or the LA DA’s pride? What’s the current clearance rate on LA County homicides ? Or violent rapes? Don’t they have, well, more dangerous fish to catch and fry? That is, people who are a greater risk to the public’s safety? And who is paying for this (at bottom, but for the fame of the felon) prosecution of a minor matter?(No pun intended!)

I mean, the maiden victim here has become a matron with the passage of time, and Mr Polanski has become no threat at all to the American public- if he ever actually was.

This is all about punishment for thumbing his nose at the State (or if you rather, Justice): not about redressing the Victim’s wrongs, nor about the protection of public safety.

That makes the DA’s herculean efforts in this particular case questionable, as a use of limited prosecutorial resources. What’s the point to this particular prosecution, exactly? Is it Justice as protection of the weak, Justice as restitution of wrong, or Justice as simple punishment?

As it appears that Mr Polanski’s flight was itself actuated by “substantial misconduct” (the words of the Judge who heard Mr Polanski’s recent motion to dismiss) by the DA’s Office back then, is it beyond the realm of possibility that the DA’s Office now is simply trying to salvage its corporate reputation and honor? And what type of Justice would that be?

Oh I did enjoy the Bugliosi quote above re: Polanski. Perhaps a quote (or maybe a wholebook) from him on Mr. Bush should carry the same weight?

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0904/S00097.htm

Oh right the Prosecutors have other things to do….

Any of you commenters with such wisdom? If you think it is a simple matter, then you are too simple to decide such matters.

There are, in actuality, way too many guys/people who hold the views that Homestar-whatever is spouting.

Vaguely relevant quote from The Rage in Placid Lake (great movie):

(two Australian high-school seniors talking)
“Is it rape if you hold a girl down with your arm on her throat?”
“Did she say ‘no’?”
“I dunno…she couldn’t really say anything. She looked pretty angry though.”

I’m definitely with you on this. Do you know of anyplace we might write to help make this a reality?