"He should be taken out and shot," the words of the always-effervescent Cokie Roberts rang through the talking head universe. And this opinion seems to be not just limited to establishment, country clubbing, cocktail-quaffing, semi-educated post-bellum southern nepotists. Many voices on the lefty sites, including this one, have called vociferously for Polanski's scalp, and anyone voicing the slightest objection to some of their more outlandish assertions or opinions are immediately branded "Polanski apologists," "pro-rape," and other insulting sobriquets.
Many of these voices cringe before the facts of the case. The only facts that really matter are these:
- Polanski's lawyers, the victim and her mother, the judge, and the prosecutors all agreed on the sentence Polanski should endure for his offense.
- Polanski fled on the eve of sentencing, in the face of mounting indications that the judge was not going to honor the plea agreement.
The howls for Polanski's head take several forms:
1. "Polanski Raped a Child" (a headline from a Newsweek column). Legally, of course, this is both false and irrelevant. It's false because he already has confessed to "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor," and hasn't been convicted of anything else. Though this is commonly referred to as statutory rape, it doesn't make the perpetrator a rapist. And it's irrelevant because Polanski has already confessed to a crime and reached a plea deal with the LA D.A.'s office.
I know people will howl about "drugging and raping" a child. I read the girl's grand jury testimony. That's unchallenged testimony. It's not facts. Even at that, she said Polanski showed her two or three pills and asked her to identify them. She says they were Quaalude and says she took one or a half of one, as did he. He didn't slip them to her. The facts are she had no signs of being physically assaulted, had no signs of injury (sexual or otherwise), and no semen was found in her body. And she accepted Polanski's plea.
Many have said, what do you expect, she didn't want the trauma of testifying at a trial. Sure. But it's also possible that accepting the plea could have been motivated from a desire not to be cross-examined on testimony that might have been, well, exaggerated a little bit.
I'm not blaming the victim or saying she's lying. I'm saying it's unwarranted to say, as so many have, that Polanski "drugged, raped, and sodomized a child." He hasn't been convicted of it. The victim's own testimony doesn't support it.
2. "Polanski shouldn't get special treatment because he's a great and famous artist; we have to uphold the principle of equal treatment under the law."
This is a real straw dog. Whether Polanski has benefited from his celebrity or suffered because of it is at least arguable (I personally believe the judge would have rubber-stamped the plea deal had the case had a low profile. The probation officer's report said that probation without jail time was usual in such cases). But the important point is that every case is different. Mandatory sentencing has filled our prisons with people harshly and unjustly sentenced, all in the name of so-called "equal justice."
The real point is that everyone most intimately involved with the case at the time agreed to what the penalty was to be. We can all have opinions about how or why that agreement came about. It doesn't really matter what we think.
3. "Polanski ran away from justice to live a life of ease and luxury." How Polanski lived after he left really has no legal interest. Maybe, if he is returned to Los Angeles, the fact that he apparently led a law-abiding and productive life for the past 30 years will have some impact on his day in court. The fact that Polanski fled is inarguable. His attorneys will certainly argue that the sentence for this should be mitigated because of the judge's unstable behavior and publicized threats to put him away for life, in spite of the plea agreement.
4. "What the victim says now should be ignored; the rule of law is at stake."
I wonder if Polanski scalp-hunters would say the same thing if the victim were urging his capture and imprisonment? But they HAVE to say this, since the victim has long ago urged an end to the legal charges against Polanski, and even suggested that he should be able to come to Los Angeles in person to accept his 2003 academy award.
What she says shouldn't be irrelevant or ignored, of course. The entire trend in criminal law over the past decades has been to allow the victim more input into the legal process. If the legal process does more damage to the victim than the criminal did (as the victim has already stated in this case) then it's misfiring badly. And although the reasons for the victim's acceptance of the plea bargain can be speculated, it's fairly obvious that a new trial or a harsh sentence is going to cause her further pain, unwanted attention, and anguish--30 years later.
5. "If Polanski isn't punished and imprisoned, it's telling others that sex with children is okay."Cases should be judged on the facts at hand, not on what "message" they may or not be sending to society. Polanski was arrested, incarcerated, pleaded guilty to a crime and was going to be sentenced. He had already served nearly half the length of his agreed-upon sentence when he fled.
Whatever happens with Polanski, my personal feeling is that there is a virulent lynch mob mentality about him in this country. I just don't see how people want this guy "taken out and shot" when the victim herself wants us all to forget about it. It borders on the pathological. Whatever happened between Polanski and the victim, it clearly did not fill her heart with the kind of loathing and vengefulness evinced by thousands on these and other pages.
6. "How would you feel if he had done this to your daughter?
Feelings should have nothing to do with judgments about the case. But I'll tell you this: no 13 year-old daughter of mine would have been dropped off at Jack Nicholson's house for a photo shoot. But if somehow he had done this to my daughter? I would pound him out and send my daughter to therapy and a convent for a year or so.
My main point is: stop responding to this case irrationally. The people closest to the facts and emotions at the time--including the victim and her mother--agreed to a result. Polanski ran because he feared that agreement was not going to be honored. You may not think that agreement was just, BUT THE PEOPLE CLOSEST TO THE FACTS DID. And you may think Polanski should be screwed for running away. Maybe he will be. But he was not running away from justice. He was running from a system that had blown a fuse. And if he comes back, he'll be returning to a howling mob.