I don’t know how many people have been following the Roman Polanski case this weekend. Roman Polanski, who has been a fugitive from the U.S. for 30 years, was arrested in Switzerland this weekend. The U.S. and Switzerland have an extradition agreement. I find this case particularly infuriating because not only has the media shown more sympathy for Polanski than for the 13-year-old victim but it also illustrates the double standard for sex offenders. Here’s one thing I find particularly troubling:
The Oscar-winning director was arrested by Swiss police as he flew in Saturday for the Zurich Film Festival. Polanski faces possible extradition to the United States for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
No, he raped her. For one thing, according to U.S. laws in almost every state, a 13-year-old can’t consent to sex. But the details of this case are pretty cut-and-dried:
The explanation comes quickly. It needs no more than a single paragraph. On 11 March 1977, Polanski was arrested in the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire hotel by Detective Philip Vannatter (a cop who would figure in the OJ Simpson case). The Polish film director was charged as follows: giving Quaaludes to a minor; child molestation; unlawful sexual intercourse with that minor; rape by use of drugs; oral copulation; sodomy. The girl was 13, though Polanski would say that she looked older.
The rape had occurred in the house of Jack Nicholson, a place Polanski used as he wished. In the legal negotiations that followed, Polanski never denied the charges, but they were dismissed under the terms of the plea bargain by which he pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor. With a view to proper sentencing, the judge – Laurence Rittenband – ordered that Polanski be confined for psychiatric examination. That led to 42 days’ confinement in the Chino State Prison over the 1977-8 period. In that examination Polanski was passed as fit to stand trial. It was the director’s understanding that the 42 days in Chino would satisfy punitive instincts. There might be a fine, too, but he would be freed. Then, just before sentencing, Polanski heard that Rittenband was ready to break the agreement – because he feared public criticism of a verdict that seemed too lenient on Polanski. And so, fearing further imprisonment, Polanski broke bail and flew by British Airways to London in February 1978. He has never been back to the US.
I guess when you’re a big-name director you get this kind of treatment:
A Polish news agency is reporting that Poland and France plan a joint appeal to try to get filmmaker Roman Polanski released from his detention in Switzerland and shown clemency by the United States.
The Polish news agency PAP quoted Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski as saying Sunday that he spoke with his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner and they plan to ask Swiss authorities to release Polanski from his arrest and ask the U.S. to offer him clemency.
And you have editorials called “The Outrageous Arrest of Roman Polanski” written in your behalf by Washington Post columnists.
Here are some of the facts: Polanski’s crime — statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl — was committed in 1977. The girl, now 45, has said more than once that she forgives him, that she can live with the memory, that she does not want him to be put back in court or in jail, and that a new trial will hurt her husband and children. There is evidence of judicial misconduct in the original trial. There is evidence that Polanski did not know her real age. Polanski, who panicked and fled the U.S. during that trial, has been pursued by this case for 30 years, during which time he has never returned to America, has never returned to the United Kingdom., has avoided many other countries, and has never been convicted of anything else. He did commit a crime, but he has paid for the crime in many, many ways: In notoriety, in lawyers’ fees, in professional stigma. He could not return to Los Angeles to receive his recent Oscar. He cannot visit Hollywood to direct or cast a film.
My heart bleeds for him. Why does her age matter at all in this case? He still drugged her and she did not give consent. It would still be rape no matter what age the victim was.
The non-rich and powerful get this kind of treatment, as highlighted by El Somnabulo earlier this year:
The Romeo and Juliet clause was not retroactive, however, so Ms Whitaker is stuck on the register, and subject to extraordinary restrictions. Registered sex offenders in Georgia are barred from living within 1,000 feet of anywhere children may congregate, such as a school, a park, a library, or a swimming pool. They are also banned from working within 1,000 feet of a school or a child-care centre. Since the church at the end of Ms Whitaker’s street houses a child-care centre, she was evicted from her home. Her husband, who worked for the county dog-catching department, moved with her, lost his job and with it their health insurance.
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Every American state keeps a register of sex offenders. California has had one since 1947, but most states started theirs in the 1990s. Many people assume that anyone listed on a sex-offender registry must be a rapist or a child molester. But most states spread the net much more widely. A report by Sarah Tofte of Human Rights Watch, a pressure group, found that at least five states required men to register if they were caught visiting prostitutes. At least 13 required it for urinating in public (in two of which, only if a child was present). No fewer than 29 states required registration for teenagers who had consensual sex with another teenager. And 32 states registered flashers and streakers.
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Despite the board’s findings, non-violent offenders remain listed and subject to a giant cobweb of controls. One rule, championed by Georgia’s House majority leader, banned them from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. This proved unworkable. Thomas Brown, the sheriff of DeKalb county near Atlanta, mapped the bus stops in his patch and realised that he would have to evict all 490 of the sex offenders living there. Other than the bottom of a lake or the middle of a forest, there was hardly anywhere in Georgia for them to live legally. In the end Georgia’s courts stepped in and suspended the bus-stop rule, along with another barring sex offenders from volunteering in churches. But most other restrictions remain.