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

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The Chinatown director's arrest on a 32-year-old charge of underage sex has outraged the French government and his fellow film-makers. But then, France has a long tradition of treating artists differently.



Film director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate* in 1965, four years before she was murdered. Photograph: Graziani/Rex Features

What has inspired many French people's objections, agrees Poirier, is not anti-Americanism but "anti-prudishness, anti self-righteousness. There's a kind of feeling in France that America is acting essentially out of revenge against a very great talent, a man who basically never abided by America's rules – even when he was the most celebrated director in Hollywood." The more so, Poirier adds, because a documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, by the investigative film-maker Marina Zenovich was widely seen in France last year.

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Should Roman Polanski be above the law? | Film | The Guardian

* Sharon Marie Tate (January 24, 1943 – August 9, 1969) was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. Married to the film director Roman Polanski in 1968, Tate was eight and a half months pregnant when she was murdered in her home, along with four others, by followers of Charles Manson.

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Extradition fight looms after Polanski arrest. Government ministers, movie directors, writers and intellectuals have expressed shock and outrage following the arrest of Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski in Switzerland on three-decade-old charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

The “real tragedy”? In 1977, Polanski pleaded guilty to having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. The price he has paid is to live in a nice house in Paris. Whatever your opinion of Parisians, I don’t think you could call their city horrible and soul-wrenching. Neither this nor a bit of snubbing is as high a price as serving a full sentence in prison.

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Being an artist shouldn't put Roman Polanski above the law

[WSJ_law_blog]

Already, the Roman Polanski situation’s got just about everything you’d want: sex, drugs, crime, Hollywood, Jack Nicholson, and Charles Manson.

But it — yes — is likely to get even more interesting. Already, it’s blossomed into an issue of some significance on the diplomatic front, and we’re only days removed from Polanski’s detention in Switzerland. Click here for our LB post from earlier Monday, which links to several news stories from today’s papers.

The latest: According to the AP, Polanski is in a “fighting mood” and will fight attempts to have him extradited from Switzerland to California.

Polanski’s challenge, according to the AP: to prove to a Swiss court that the U.S. request was “illegal,” and that he therefore should be released from Swiss custody.

How might he do that? Polanski might argue that Swiss courts should throw out the case on account of misconduct by the original prosecutor and judge. The lower court, Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza in Los Angeles, had dismissed Polanski’s bid to throw out the case because the director failed to appear in court, but said there was “substantial misconduct” in the handling of the original case.

So what about the issue of possible prosecutorial or judicial misconduct? Frank A. Rubino, a Miami-based defense attorney who has represented defendants such as former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega and has handled “many, many” extraditions, told the WSJ’s Jennifer Forsyth Monday that Polanski might try to convince a Swiss court that improprieties existed in the initial case.

“The extradition is going to be in Switzerland,” says Rubino. If a “Swiss lawyer can convince the Swiss court that there were improprieties in [Polanski’s] conviction, they may say ‘Well, that’s not a valid conviction.’ If they make a finding that it wasn’t valid, then they might say ‘We are not going to send him back on a invalid conviction.’ That could fly. That’s a pretty good argument.”

What about the argument that the victim, Samantha Geimer, no longer cares if Polanski serves time? Rubino says that too might be an avenue to argue before a Swiss judge.

“You might argue—I don’t know how successful it might be—but you can try– that if he were to be sent back to the U.S. that the victim would appear, she would say she has no interest in prosecuting him, etc., so therefore he probably would not get sentenced to jail. So we would all be wasting our time and money sending him back, just so he can return back to Europe in no time.

Rubino adds: “That’s not a great argument but it’s there.”

In any event, Swiss Justice spokesman Guido Balmer told the AP that extradition is not a foregone conclusion; that an arrangement whereby Polanski is released on bail but forbidden from leaving Switzerland is “not entirely excluded” under Swiss law. But he said Switzerland’s top criminal court would undertake a thorough examination of evidence before deciding on any request, and that would take time.

In any event, Polanski is likely to have a handful of European nations on his side. Already, France and Poland have urged Switzerland to free him on bail and pressed U.S. officials all the way up to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the case.

“(Polanski was) thrown to the lions,” said French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand. “In the same way that there is a generous America that we like, there is also a scary America that has just shown its face.”

[Yahoo!_news]

AFP - Roman Polanski's lawyers vowed to fight his extradition over a 32-year-old child sex case, amid reports they may have sparked his arrest by suggesting that US prosecutors were not serious about nabbing the famed film director.

Swiss authorities said they were awaiting an extradition request from the United States over the case in which he admitted having sex with a 13-year-old girl. The victim has since joined defence lawyers in urging for the case to be dismissed.

Los Angeles prosecutors confirmed Monday they would file a warrant seeking Polanski's return to the United States, noting they had 40 days to prepare it.

But Polanski's French lawyer, Herve Temime, said the director rejected any prospect of extradition.

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I think this USA is out of control again. The 70's were very different and what have they been doing the last 40 years.

Maybe they should focus on balancing their their budget!

it is interesting that the arrest happened in switzerland. swiss bank secret laws are broken after the deal with usa and now this stupid arrest for no reason. what next?... madonna arrested for being toooo gay friendly and promoting gay marriages?

Samantha Gailey versus Roman Polanski: Recently unsealed grand jury minutes detail 1977 sex assault...

Two weeks after Polanski plied her with Champagne and a Quaalude, Samantha Gailey appeared before an L.A. grand jury and recalled Polanski's predatory behavior in a Mulholland Canyon home owned by Jack Nicholson. The teenager's troubling--and contemporaneous--account of her abuse at Polanski's hands begins with her posing twice for topless photos that the director said were for French Vogue. The girl then told prosecutors how Polanski directed her to, "Take off your underwear" and enter the Jacuzzi, where he photographed her naked. Soon, the director, who was then 43, joined her in the hot tub. He also wasn't wearing any clothes and, according to Gailey's testimony, wrapped his hands around the child's waist. The girl testified that she left the Jacuzzi and entered a bedroom in Nicholson's home, where Polanski sat down beside her and kissed the teen, despite her demands that he "keep away." According to Gailey, Polanski then performed a sex act on her and later "started to have intercourse with me." At one point, according to Gailey's testimony, Polanski asked the 13-year-old if she was "on the pill," and "When did you last have your period?" Polanski then asked her, Gailey recalled, "Would you want me to go in through your back?" before he "put his penis in my butt." Asked why she did not more forcefully resist Polanski, the teenager told Deputy D.A. Roger Gunson, "Because I was afraid of him."

The Smoking Gun: Archive



Samantha Gailey 13 years old


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

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[forum_admin]

An international tug-of-war over director Roman Polanski is escalating. Polanski, in Switzerland for a film festival, is being held on an international arrest warrant but an expert from USC law school says the Swiss are in an interesting position. (Sept. 28)

Originally Posted by Unregistered I think this USA is out of control again. The 70's were very different and what have they been doing the last 40 years. Maybe they should focus on balancing their their budget!

For all the people that think he should get away with rape should really think on it.. You should be asking what if that was my daughter that this man raped when she was a little girl and fled from authority. He should be punished for what he did and since he's a popular directory it shouldn't make him above the law.. Dont turn this into a popularity contest. Time for this sick pervert to pay for his crime.

I'm ashamed to be Swiss... Swiss neutrality is about not taking sides. They're doing a favor for the United States that they wouldn't do for another country.