hellojan

I think we're missing the bigger picture. The US DoJ has been trying to get their hands on UBS exec Raoul Weil for months. Weil, uber-rich and well connected, is a Swiss national who is comfortably holed up in Zurich. He spent years helping businesses and business people avoid paying US taxes.

The DoJ has been pressing Zurich to hand over Weil. The Swiss probably decided to offer Polanski as a consolation prize. Now, publicly at least, it'll be difficult for the US to call Swizterland uncooperative.

Lastly, Polanski's victim has for years been pleading with government officials to drop the charges against Polanski.

garland

Legally, that has no bearing. And ethically, I think, actually, it doesn't either. For the state to act differently over what it has proclaimed a crime, sends a message that it is not really a crime. We can't know what kind of pressure may or may not have been exerted on her. And even if there were none, we can't know if other criminals might decide to exert pressure on a victim to plead for the convicted crime to be overlooked. That's a bad precedent.

cangel

Just so that I understand, all you legal eagles, statutory rape is kind of like serving alcohol to minors, the minor misrepresenting their age that is not a defense for the adult, s/he is still considered responsible, correct?

Mezzo'sMama

Mimk6- the media is quite capable of lying and manipulating us to feel as they think we should. As we all know, there are those who claim that the Holocaust never took place, so if you saw that on a TV screen, would you believe that? I don't care if the girl looked like she was 25 and walked into Polanski's party stark naked, the man had NO RIGHT TO TOUCH HER. And don't tell me that an adult doesn't know that having sexual relations with a minor isn't against the law. As for finding excuses for that disgusting man simply because of what had occured earlier in his life is sick reasoning. I'm was a young girl who had to deal with something like this, so because of that, would you excuse me if I became a serial killer? Polanski deserves to spend the rest of his life in jail, first for the rape and then for running out on his punishment; he sure wanted to be a "man" when it came to having sex, how come that didn't carry over into doing the time for the crime? Justice for this low-life will be that he never again walks free outside of that prison and that he lives in fear of being "used" in there in the same fashion he used that 13 year old girl.
Cangel- the answer to your question is "yes".

3bm103

I can't understand how anybody can believe that it matters whether he knew how old she was or not. SHE WAS 13 YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!! It also doesn't matter whether she consented. And it does matter that he fled the country.

mantori.suzuki

This is no different than saying, "It's illegal because it's wrong, and it's wrong because it's illegal." For a grown man to have sex with a 13-year-old is wrong, but the statement I've quoted is no kind of logical proof of that.

I think the word rape is overused in America these days, although in Polanski's case, what he did deserves punishment. There is a wide range of activities—consensual, non-consensual, and where consent is hard to define or prove—that automatically get labeled as rape, and then people start saying "rape is rape," as though consensual sex between, say, a 23-year-old and a consenting 16-year-old is the same as a man forcing himself upon a victim who is pushing him away and saying no. Perhaps neither is "right," but if you can't see a difference, then you're just willfully refusing to think discerningly.

Now, Polanski drugged a girl and had sex with her. In my view that's a very, very small step away from forcible, violent rape. The victim's age hardly enters into it. Would it have been better somehow if he had drugged and had sex with a 30-year-old woman? The guy committed what I believe any reasonable person would consider a crime, and he deserves to be punished as much as anyone else who does such a thing.

As for the victim, her desire to have the case dropped should not come to bear because, as someone else noted above, such a precedent would encourage perpetrators to pressure or pay off their victims to keep them quiet. But if she chooses not to testify, and he gets off as a result, there's not much anyone can do about that.

mantori.suzuki

I believe that what you are saying is that no man could fail to notice that a 13-year-old is underage. In other words, if he didn't know exactly how old she was, but it should have been obvious that she wasn't old enough to consent, that should be enough to convict him. Is that correct? (I'm not arguing, just trying to clarify what you meant.)

NJres

Please tell me this is not what she said.. can Whoopi be that stupid?

There is a current local case involving statutory rape and it is being reported that the crime is often overlooked.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opi...ry/970956.html

3bm103

She not only said we should be careful what we accuse him of, she also stated that in other cultures it is okay to have sex with a 13 yr old. I cannot believe more people aren't upset about what she said.

3bm103

Yes. That is correct. He should make sure that whomever he is having sex with is of legal age. Something more people should stress to their sons. It's not like she was 17 1/2.

mantori.suzuki

Yeah, and some people said that Michael Vick shouldn't have gone to prison for dogfighting, because that, too, is part of some mysterious "culture". Where are these cultures that I keep hearing condone abhorrent practices?

mantori.suzuki

Got it. That's what I thought you meant.

I wonder if someone accused of statutory rape has ever produced expert witnesses in the study of age and physical features, in an effort to prove that a reasonable person would have thought the other party was of legal age. Nobody "cards" their dates, and it's unreasonable to think that they would.

But anyway, considering that the various people involved in the Polanski case knew one another, it's highly unlikely he didn't know the girl's age. It's hard to imagine any scenario other than the obvious. He decided that his horny impulses were more important than her dignity. And the drugging really seals the case.

Pizzagirl

I really think that the victim's opinion is rather irrelevant -- we shouldn't sentence based on how the victim feels. (What if the victim wants his fingernails pulled out one by one?)

The Smoking Gun has the original testimony of this young lady. It was rape, he fled the country, he deserves jail time. Couldn't give a darn that he's a great artiste or that he had a horrible life (Nazis, Sharon Tate murder).

Pizzagirl

BTW, did you all know this took place at Jack Nicholson's house, and that Angelica Huston saw the young woman in the house after the rape took place?

mantori.suzuki

Then send them to prison too!!! Oh, wait, sorry...that's not what you were suggesting, was it?