In which I say that I am tired of reading that Roman Polanski is a victim.
(Note: also posted as a Note on my Facebook page.)
I am increasingly perplexed by reaction to the Roman Polanski case that runs along one or more of these lines:
--He was railroaded
--He was going to receive an unfair sentence and thus was justified in fleeing
--The tone of LA in the 1970's was such that the crime was not as severe as it appears measured against current mores
--The 13 year old in question had prior sexual experience and that should be considered
--In adulthood, the woman now has repeatedly asked that the case be dropped because it continues to bring unwanted attention upon herself and her family, and so the State should accordingly drop the case
No.
No, to any and all of these.
Look, there's some things we can accept as true here:
Polanski is a talented director. If all he had ever made was Chinatown, that would still be true. Whether the fact that he raped a child makes you not want to see his movies is an entirely different question, one I won't go into here because it is addressed well by my friend Marc Hirsh in this post on NPR.com.
There's no question that tragedy has repeatedly touched Roman Polanski's life. He was a child in the Cracow ghetto and survived the Holocaust. His father survived Mauthausen; his mother died in Auschwitz (Birkenau). His wife and unborn son were slaughtered by the Manson family. Either one of those events are soulbreaking.
But let's also accept this truth: those facts are completely immaterial when discussing his case. He raped a 13 year old girl. This isn't accusation, this is fact. He admitted to it. He plead guilty.
That this girl grew into an adult who wants the case abandoned is, depending on whose facts you believe, either extraordinary forgiveness or a practical decision arising from not wanting to deal with the celebrity aspects of the case any longer. It's hard to get on with your life when every time the Polanski case comes up, the press goes after you and your family. But again, No. That's not how the system works, nor should it. It's the flipside of the coin that prevents vigilante justice. You don't get to decided the punishment; the State provides a jury of the accused's peers to do that on behalf of the People, on the idea that everyone is injured when injustice is done. It is laudable to forgive. Unfortunately, the State isn't in the business of forgiving, it's in the business of seeing justice done.
Which brings us to the unfair sentencing counter-arguement. If the State is in the business of seeing justice done in the rape victim's case, it is and absolutely must also be in the business of seeing justice done for Polanski. The only way to achieve this is to follow the system to it's logical end. Polanski plea bargained down to probation. He fled when it became known that the sentencing judge planned to impose a prison term and have him deported. He fled not because he was being railroaded for something he hadn't done but because he was afraid of the sentence he'd receive for a crime he admitted he committed.
That said, bear with me here because this is where Polanski may have been wronged:
-The judge (Laurence Rittenband) may have had a legal right to ignore the plea bargain; after all, he was the presiding judge. However,
-The judge's decision to impose a prison term & deportation came following a conversation with the then-Deputy District Attorney (David Wells).
-That conversation was illegal. Why? Because the California Code of Judicial Ethics says so. I'm going to quote the Slate Explainer here:
While Wells was not himself an attorney of record in the case, he was a lawyer for one of the parties-the state of California. The California Code of Judicial Ethics forbids judges to engage in ex parte communications-discussions where only one side is represented.
There is no question that Rittenband violated the ethics code. The question of whether his conversations with Wells are sufficient grounds for dismissal of the charges against Polanski is an open question. (Emphasis mine.)
It's an open question that was never addressed because Polanski fled the country, introducing a separate element entirely: fugitive. If he has a case, and it certainly appears he might, then the only way to put this all to rest (and ironically for the victim, the only way to keep her from recurring bouts of unwanted attention) is for him to come back and follow the system. There is no way that doing that can be any worse of an experience than what he perpetuated upon that 13 year old.
I am increasingly perplexed by reaction to the Roman Polanski case that runs along one or more of these lines:
--He was railroaded
--He was going to receive an unfair sentence and thus was justified in fleeing
--The tone of LA in the 1970's was such that the crime was not as severe as it appears measured against current mores
--The 13 year old in question had prior sexual experience and that should be considered
--In adulthood, the woman now has repeatedly asked that the case be dropped because it continues to bring unwanted attention upon herself and her family, and so the State should accordingly drop the case
No.
No, to any and all of these.
Look, there's some things we can accept as true here:
Polanski is a talented director. If all he had ever made was Chinatown, that would still be true. Whether the fact that he raped a child makes you not want to see his movies is an entirely different question, one I won't go into here because it is addressed well by my friend Marc Hirsh in this post on NPR.com.
There's no question that tragedy has repeatedly touched Roman Polanski's life. He was a child in the Cracow ghetto and survived the Holocaust. His father survived Mauthausen; his mother died in Auschwitz (Birkenau). His wife and unborn son were slaughtered by the Manson family. Either one of those events are soulbreaking.
But let's also accept this truth: those facts are completely immaterial when discussing his case. He raped a 13 year old girl. This isn't accusation, this is fact. He admitted to it. He plead guilty.
That this girl grew into an adult who wants the case abandoned is, depending on whose facts you believe, either extraordinary forgiveness or a practical decision arising from not wanting to deal with the celebrity aspects of the case any longer. It's hard to get on with your life when every time the Polanski case comes up, the press goes after you and your family. But again, No. That's not how the system works, nor should it. It's the flipside of the coin that prevents vigilante justice. You don't get to decided the punishment; the State provides a jury of the accused's peers to do that on behalf of the People, on the idea that everyone is injured when injustice is done. It is laudable to forgive. Unfortunately, the State isn't in the business of forgiving, it's in the business of seeing justice done.
Which brings us to the unfair sentencing counter-arguement. If the State is in the business of seeing justice done in the rape victim's case, it is and absolutely must also be in the business of seeing justice done for Polanski. The only way to achieve this is to follow the system to it's logical end. Polanski plea bargained down to probation. He fled when it became known that the sentencing judge planned to impose a prison term and have him deported. He fled not because he was being railroaded for something he hadn't done but because he was afraid of the sentence he'd receive for a crime he admitted he committed.
That said, bear with me here because this is where Polanski may have been wronged:
-The judge (Laurence Rittenband) may have had a legal right to ignore the plea bargain; after all, he was the presiding judge. However,
-The judge's decision to impose a prison term & deportation came following a conversation with the then-Deputy District Attorney (David Wells).
-That conversation was illegal. Why? Because the California Code of Judicial Ethics says so. I'm going to quote the Slate Explainer here:
While Wells was not himself an attorney of record in the case, he was a lawyer for one of the parties-the state of California. The California Code of Judicial Ethics forbids judges to engage in ex parte communications-discussions where only one side is represented.
There is no question that Rittenband violated the ethics code. The question of whether his conversations with Wells are sufficient grounds for dismissal of the charges against Polanski is an open question. (Emphasis mine.)
It's an open question that was never addressed because Polanski fled the country, introducing a separate element entirely: fugitive. If he has a case, and it certainly appears he might, then the only way to put this all to rest (and ironically for the victim, the only way to keep her from recurring bouts of unwanted attention) is for him to come back and follow the system. There is no way that doing that can be any worse of an experience than what he perpetuated upon that 13 year old.