Recently people have been discussing the thirty-year-old child rape charges against the director Roman Polanski. This has been an extremely heated debate. Here is my opinion on this whole thing:

First off, I think that Roman Polanski should be charged and receive some sort of punishment. The crime he committed is an extremely sick and disgusting one. I'd never be able to forgive someone who did that to any relative of mine (I am not in college yet, so I am not married and don't have kids, or I would've said "my children").

Secondly, it has been thirty years. That is not to say that time diminishes his crime, time does not ever diminish the severity/disgustingness of any crime.

Thirdly, if I am not mistaken, there is a set time period in which any crime is allowed to be prosecuted. I believe this time period is not a thirty year long wondow of opportunity.

If this is correct then Roman Polanski cannot be prosecuted for his crime. and if all of this is true then a whole bunch of people are fighting just to fight.

I understand that the situation with Roman is a huge opportunity to make an example of a famous person, to show everyone that even celebrities are not above the law, even if they might not be able to do so to the fullest extent.

Because this crime has been brought up again and people are talking about it, I think. Roman Polanski's reputation has been ruined for all of the people (including me) who hadn't heard about this. That is almost worse that being sent to prison. Roman Polanski will be better known for raping a girl than for his movies.

Fourth, Roman Polanski has had to live in exile for thirty years. He has had all of this time to think about his crime, and if it was me in his position (I am a girl) I know that the weight of my crime would sit on me and start to "fester", making me feel disgusted with my self.

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There are my points. Wether anyone agrees with them I do not care. It's a free country.

I want everyone's stand on this subject. I will not allow any kind of "opinion bashing" in this thread. You can post your opinion and say things like "I don't agree with ________ opinion. Here's my take" or any variant. If anyone posts "you are all wrong! You don't have any idea what you're talking about" or any variant (meaning any kind of angry "everyone else is wrong" kind of statement, I will blacklist you/ (if possible) ban you from this thread.

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BLACKLIST

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He should go to jail and do his time. He broke the law, what anyone else says, even the victim should be heard but in a way ignored.
you break the law you pay. Nothing should get away with drugging and raping at 13 years old girl and then running away from it.

If they hadn't bungled up the case in the first place, things wouldn't have turned out like this. Apparently the judge at the time was trying to make an example of Polanski and just ended up scaring him out of the country before he could do more than spend a month in jail.

But since they have bungled it, I'm not sure what they should do or if they really can do anything. I didn't notice any mention of the statute of limitations on the case. But he did plead guilty to the charge of statutory rape back in 1977 (before I was born!).

I hate the idea that because he is a "brilliant filmmaker" he should get a get out of jail free card. He still raped a girl and even admitted to raping her. I don't think that living in France for thirty years is such a horrible punishment. Not every person who does such a thing will reflect on their crime. The last thirty years could have been his own personal hell, or not.

The thing that really struck me about the article that I read though was that his victim said she wished people would stop dragging the case around because she just wants to get on with her life. She's married and has children and wants people to leave well enough alone because she has to relive everything all over again every time it gets brought up.

Ultimately, I think that for her sake, more than anything else they need to either put him in jail right away or close up the case.

Roman Polanski was convicted of his crime and fled. That alone is a crime.
I believe that he should be punished for what he did to that little girl who is now a woman who spent her life watching people praise his movies and say what a good man he was.

He shouldn't get another trial he should serve the sentence that he should have served over 30 years ago I mean how would the world feel if someone else did this same thing and fled but the only difference is he was some hollywood director, People would be appalled and terrified that a man capable of drugging and raping a 13 yr old girl is on the loose.

I think it was really cowardly of him to flee the country in the first place. If the law is willing to still capture him and reprimand him for his crime, then it should be done. Normally, I would say that the window of time to punish him is over, but this is -child rape- we're dealing with. Such a sick crime really shouldn't be left unpunished.

Moving this to debates where it belongs.

i think he's innocent. should be released

As far as law goes, I don't think he should be punished because it has been over 9 years. 9 years is the basic year limitation for rape I believe, but I could be wrong.

As for my opinion on the whole thing, I think most of us do not like everything about our past. He SHOULD be punished for what he did, but i think if he hasn't done it in 30 some years, then it's a part of his past. I wouldn't want people judging me on things I do now when I'm like 50 years old. So I think he should get a year, or be sued a LARGE amount of money by the girl. Not that I think that you should be able to pay your way out of a situation, but I more strongly believe in people being given a second chance.
[Especially when these people have already proven they are better than that within the past 30 or so years.]

But yes, I think a year of jail time would suffice for such an old crime.

To those who are arguing about the statute of limitations, that only applies to the amount of time between when a crime occurs and when a person is charged for it. If he had fled before being charged, sure, it would be too long. However, as was mentioned, he was not only charged but convicted of his crime. He fled when the judge screwed him over, basically throwing out his plea bargain after he'd pled guilty.

I think he should be arrested, simply because it doesn't promote a good message that you can commit so heinous a crime, flee the country, come back a few decades later (after having enjoyed the world's longest vacation in a country pretty high up on most people's dream vacation spots) and then nothing happen to you. It's important that he be arrested, if for no other reason than to show that being rich enough to leave everything behind and hide out in another country for awhile does not mean you can commit a crime and never go to prison.

I think he should be prosecuted for it. 30 years or not. Being famous does not make him exempt. And I wonder why the French have protected him all these years. Doesnt say much about the french does it.

Originally Posted by wandering echo

I think he should be prosecuted for it. 30 years or not. Being famous does not make him exempt. And I wonder why the French have protected him all these years. Doesnt say much about the french does it.

They haven't "protected" him, they've just refused to extradite him. Many countries have anti-extradition policies, particularly when the US is involved. Mind you, it's more often invoked when the death penalty is involved, but then most people who flee the country aren't willing to do it over anything less than life in prison or the death penalty. Canada recently upset the international community by agreeing to extradite any American deserters that fled to that country, since it's very possible that they will be executed when they're taken back to the US.

I think he should be arrested; it's not right that one can just run away and hide from their sentences; but I also think it should be taken into account that this happened thirty years ago. He hasn't raped any other girls, so I'd say he's probably not a public menace. :\

Originally Posted by Axel Von Headbanger

i think he's innocent. should be released

...O__o;;
He's admitted to it!

Originally Posted by For-Chan Cookie

If they hadn't bungled up the case in the first place, things wouldn't have turned out like this. Apparently the judge at the time was trying to make an example of Polanski and just ended up scaring him out of the country before he could do more than spend a month in jail.

But since they have bungled it, I'm not sure what they should do or if they really can do anything. I didn't notice any mention of the statute of limitations on the case. But he did plead guilty to the charge of statutory rape back in 1977 (before I was born!).

I hate the idea that because he is a "brilliant filmmaker" he should get a get out of jail free card. He still raped a girl and even admitted to raping her. I don't think that living in France for thirty years is such a horrible punishment. Not every person who does such a thing will reflect on their crime. The last thirty years could have been his own personal hell, or not.

The thing that really struck me about the article that I read though was that his victim said she wished people would stop dragging the case around because she just wants to get on with her life. She's married and has children and wants people to leave well enough alone because she has to relive everything all over again every time it gets brought up.

Ultimately, I think that for her sake, more than anything else they need to either put him in jail right away or close up the case.

I agree with you, while I feel what he did was wrong, it happened over 30 years ago and the victim has forgiven him and wants to move on and by dragging out the court case it's only exacerbating the issue and causing everyone involved more pain because now it's in the public eye and it's going to be thrown into her face as a constant reminder.

Yeah, in the end my opinion is this whole thing is a gigantic mess. It should have been dealt with properly the first time. The fact that because a judge (apparently more concerned with being re-elected than honoring a predetermined and agreed uopn plea bargain) scared Roman Polanski off to France for thirty years and then having this brought up AGAIN is annoying. I'm not saying that they should just let him go just so I won't have to hear or worry or think about this anymore, he should be prosecuted for his actions.

I reached this opinion by reading everyone's posts and thinking about the whole situation. I thank everyone who's posted in this thread so far and I encourage others to post their opinions.

Originally Posted by Philomel

They haven't "protected" him, they've just refused to extradite him. Many countries have anti-extradition policies, particularly when the US is involved. Mind you, it's more often invoked when the death penalty is involved, but then most people who flee the country aren't willing to do it over anything less than life in prison or the death penalty. Canada recently upset the international community by agreeing to extradite any American deserters that fled to that country, since it's very possible that they will be executed when they're taken back to the US.

I'm kind of one to believe in countries shouldn't always extradite criminals. When someone is running they really don't have much choice in where they go be it Canada or Mexico if they are fleeing on land.

Eh, I don't think they should feel pressured to, but if they want to, more power to them. After all, the people in question are criminals, and regardless of their crime, it's very reasonable to not want more criminals in your country than are already there. It's just up to the country the criminal fled to, and we need to stop taking it so personally when a country won't give us what we want.

Originally Posted by Philomel

Eh, I don't think they should feel pressured to, but if they want to, more power to them. After all, the people in question are criminals, and regardless of their crime, it's very reasonable to not want more criminals in your country than are already there. It's just up to the country the criminal fled to, and we need to stop taking it so personally when a country won't give us what we want.

When you say this country takes it personally when they don't get what they want, that is an understatement. This country is the world police, and not that I'm advocating for people who sexually abuse people at all. I think that it's more of a power issue.

Normally I'd say he should be charged, but from what I've heard the victim says she wants the charges to be dropped and everyone to move on, and if that's the case and she forgives him, then I don't think there is much to fight about thirty years later.

At this point, she has no say in the matter. It went to trial, he plead guilty, he was sentenced. In any other case, at this point, nothing short of being proven innocent would keep a person from going to prison.

To be entirely honest, he got off easy anyway. If she had been a grown woman under those same circumstances, it would have been just plain rape. Undoubtedly, three decades of victim-blaming have affected the woman's enthusiasm about him being prosecuted. How would you feel if a man drugged you, got you drunk, refused to take you home when you asked him to, had sex with you even though you repeatedly told him no, fled the country for thirty years, and had all these people supporting him by saying he's a "genius" and should be given special consideration for that reason and that because you took your clothes off for what you believed was nothing more than a nude photo shoot like models often have done, you invited what happened to you?

He broke the law and fled the country to evade being prosecuted. Personally I think it's about damn time he was caught. I don't think he should get away with it just because so much time has passed.

Just going to add-
He has a wife and kids. How would you feel if you were his wife?
Something your husband did so long ago, tearing him away from you.

I feel like some sympathy should be given to his family at least. His reputation is already ruined. No one is calling him a 'genius' anymore. They're calling him a 'rapist'

Yes, they are. The celebrity support for him is actually a relatively recent occurrance. Petitions have been signed to let him off the hook permanently, and the majority of celebrities that have spoken out about the case have supported him. Whoopi Goldberg actually said it wasn't rape, and several others have been spreading misinformation about the case that makes it seem like a normal consentual sex act between two adults.

And honestly, I don't give a damn about his wife and kids. If she was okay being married to someone who drugged and raped a young girl, her opinion on the matter doesn't matter to me.