Poll: Should Roman Polanski be extradited to the United States?

[Law200]

I agree!!!

[Yahoo!_news]

Reuters - Film director Roman Polanski, arrested in Switzerland three weeks ago to face extradition in a U.S. sex case, has been moved from jail for medical treatment, his French lawyer said on Saturday.

U.S. authorities have up to 60 days to make a firm extradition request. U.S. judicial sources have said the complex extradition process could take years if Polanski challenges it.

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[Yahoo!_news]

Reuters - A Swiss court rejected on Tuesday a bid by film director Roman Polanski for release on bail as the risk was too high he would flee pending extradition to the United States for having unlawful sex with a minor in 1977.

"According to Swiss law, detention is the rule during the entire extradition proceedings," the Swiss Federal Criminal Court said in a statement. "The court considered the risk that Roman Polanski might flee if released from custody as high."

The court also said it would be very easy to escape across the border from Switzerland back to his home in France.

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[Yahoo!_news]

Reuters - Film director Roman Polanski, now in Swiss detention, may decide to face justice in the United States, where he is wanted on a 1977 sex charge, to avoid lengthy extradition procedures, one of his lawyers said on Wednesday.

In denying him bail, the Swiss court said Polanski would have a strong motivation to run away as a jail sentence in the United States would mean a painful separation from his French wife and their two children, aged 11 and 16.

The court also said Polanski had the financial means to flee.

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Polanski, who had U.S. box office hits with his films "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown," went on to have a successful career in Europe, winning a best director Oscar for his 2002 Holocaust movie "The Pianist."

[WSJ_law_blog]

This Swiss jail thing ain’t working; let’s just get the show on the road.

According to an NYT story out Thursday, that may be jailed film director Roman Polanski’s newly found attitude on his extradition fight: let’s skip all the undercards and head right to the title bout.

The Times cites Polanski lawyer Georges Kiejman, who reportedly suggested the idea of a possible return in interviews with European news outlets on Wednesday, during which he also indicated that Polanski, 76, was not in the best of health. “If this process drags on, it is not completely impossible that Roman Polanski could choose to go finally to explain himself in the United States, where arguments in his favor exist,” he said in a morning interview with the French radio station Europe 1.

Later in the day, however, Mr. Kiejman softened his statement, telling the NYT that it had been a quick, vague remark and “for the moment my client has not changed his strategy and will contest the extradition demand.”

“But all options are possible with the passage of time,” he added. “For now we can say that everything is open, that’s all.”

In an e-mail message on Wednesday Mr. Polanski’s other French lawyer, Hervé Temime, said that there would be “no change in strategy,” and that Mr. Polanski, the Oscar-winning movie director, would continue to fight extradition.

In other news on L’Affaire Polanski, the WSJ’s Tamara Audi has reported on Thursday that it was indeed the Swiss who alerted U.S. officials to Polanski’s pending trip to Zurich, allowing the officials the lead time to apprehend him.

Writes Audi:

Exactly what compelled the Swiss to alert U.S. officials to Mr. Polanski’s travel plan is unclear. The Oscar-winning director . . . has a home in Switzerland and has traveled in and out of the country freely in the past. But the emails reveal that Swiss authorities in this instance had advance notice of Mr. Polanski’s plans to be in the country.

Law Blog Separated-at-Birth Entry of the Day: The resemblance is just too strong to go unmentioned for another day: For our money, Polanski is the spitting image of Columbia University president and First Amendment scholar Lee Bollinger (pictured, right), whose new book on the press and the First Amendment, “Uninhibited, Robust and Wide-Open,” is slated to be published by Oxford University Press in January.

[Yahoo!_news]

AP - The United States has asked Switzerland to hand over Roman Polanski to authorities in California, where he could serve up to two years in prison for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl, Swiss authorities said Friday.

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This is a Jan. 15, 2009 file photo, of film director Roman Polanski in Montrouge, France. Documents obtained by The Associated Press show the arrest of fugitive director Roman Polanski was set in motion by Swiss authorities, who sent an urgent fax to the U.S. Office of International Affairs on Sept. 22, 2009 stating Polanski was expected in Zurich for a film festival. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

[Yahoo!_news]

AP - The United States has asked Switzerland to hand over Roman Polanski to authorities in California, where he could serve up to two years in prison for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl, Swiss and U.S. authorities said Friday.

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[Yahoo!_news]

Reuters - Film director Roman Polanski could face two years in prison if extradited to the United States after fleeing sentencing in California on child sex charges in 1978, the Swiss justice ministry said.

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[Yahoo!_news]

AP - Roman Polanski's arrest has caused his victim health problems and job worries, and she just wants to be left alone, her attorney wrote in a court filing.

Attorney Lawrence Silver urged a California appeals court to dismiss the criminal case against the "Chinatown" director.

The filing with the Second District Court of Appeal on Friday said Geimer and Silver have received nearly 500 media calls seeking comment since Polanski was arrested in Switzerland on Sept. 26.

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[Yahoo!_news]

AFP - Roman Polanski will file a new request before a Swiss court to be released from jail while the Oscar-winning director awaits a decision on a US extradition request, his French attorney said Saturday.

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