• Welcome to The Cave of Dragonflies forums, where the smallest bugs live alongside the strongest dragons.

    Guests are not able to post messages or even read certain areas of the forums. Now, that's boring, don't you think? Registration, on the other hand, is simple, completely free of charge, and does not require you to give out any personal information at all. As soon as you register, you can take part in some of the happy fun things at the forums such as posting messages, voting in polls, sending private messages to people and being told that this is where we drink tea and eat cod.

    Of course I'm not forcing you to do anything if you don't want to, but seriously, what have you got to lose? Five seconds of your life?

Extradition of Roman Polanski

opaltiger

opaltiger

actually very huggable
Staff member
Pronoun
he/him
Background: thirty years ago, Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year old girl. He admitted to this, but fled the US before he could be sentenced. He's been living in France ever since, with France refusing to extradite him. Recently he was arrested by request of US authorities in Switzerland where he was attending a film festival. Now many influential people are calling for his release (Sarkozy, to name one; but also a large number of directors, for example Terry Gilliam, and so on).

So. What do you think? Should Polanski be extradited to the US and tried?
 
I'm torn, because on one side he's a disgusting paedophile but on the other the victim has dropped the charges iirc and she's now of legal age so he'd only be tried for rape.
So um.

Why is Terry Gilliam calling for his release? Surely not just because they're in the same line of work?
 
Only?

ETA: All she said was that she wishes people would stop bringing the case up. Polanski had been convicted; you can't just drop the charges.
ETA2: I got it slightly wrong, here's the quote:

In 2008, Geimer stated in an interview that she wishes Polanski would be forgiven, "I think he's sorry, I think he knows it was wrong. I don't think he's a danger to society. I don't think he needs to be locked up forever and no one has ever come out ever — besides me — and accused him of anything. It was 30 years ago now. It's an unpleasant memory ... (but) I can live with it."
Click to expand...

Like I said, though, it doesn't matter what she thinks. Polanski was convicted of rape. He fled the country. These things are important.
 
Last edited:
Creasy said:
He admitted to having sex with her, but not drugging or raping her.
Click to expand...

He pleaded guilty only to unlawful sex with a minor, yes, but this was part of a plea bargain to get the other charges (i.e. the drugs and the rape) dropped. That is pretty damning in itself; the victim also testified that she had been drugged and raped, and Polanski has never denied it.

He never explicitly admitted it, true. But the implications are quite convincing. Perhaps I should have said "all but admitted".
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't having sex with a 13-year-old girl sat rape, regardless of whether or not she's accusing him?

It actually breaks my heart to see so many famous people I like(d) campaigning for the charges to be dropped (Whoopi Goldberg: "I know it wasn't rape-rape. It was something else but I don't believe it was rape-rape." Wut?). How great an artist and how much he's done for the film industry or whatever shouldn't hold any sway over his sentence.

Here's a nifty quote from Polanski from an interview in 1979:

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!”
Click to expand...

Niiiiice.
 
...the victim has dropped the charges iirc and she's now of legal age so he'd only be tried for rape.
Click to expand...

okay er why would he only be tried for rape when at the time she was underage? I didn't think the age of the victim after the crime mattered (it shouldn't, anyway).

anyway, yeah he should whether she's pushing charges or not, regardless of who he is.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't having sex with a 13-year-old girl sat rape, regardless of whether or not she's accusing him?
Click to expand...

Statutory rape, yes, but I'm not sure if that's prosecuted differently from 'normal' rape. I think it might be; hence 'unlawful sex with a minor', which is the same thing.
 
of course he should be held responsible for what he did
he shouldn't just have the charges laid off even if it's been so long
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom