Triskaidekaphile - Roman Polanski's victim was only 13. To some of his supporters, that's a mitigating factor.
Ubiquitous
offender and fugitive from justice--was arrested in Switzerland on a
1978 American warrant. Here's the background, from London's Guardian:
Polanski was 44 and already a twice-Oscar-nominated
director in March 1977 when he had sex with . . . a
13-year-old model he had hired for a photoshoot, at
Jack Nicholson's house in Los Angeles. He has argued
that the sex was consensual, saying the girl was "not
unresponsive," though [she] said he drugged her with
painkillers and champagne before carrying out a "very
scary" assault.
The director pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse
in a deal with prosecutors that saw them drop charges of
rape, drugging and sodomy, which could have carried a life
sentence, but fled the country in February 1978 when it
became apparent that he was likely to serve time in prison.
Virtually the entire entertainment industry, along with a few
journalists, has gone to work making excuses for Polanski. Some of those
excuses are quite shocking. One line of argument actually ends up
treating the fact that the victim was only 13 as if it were a mitigating
factor.
"I know it wasn't rape-rape," the Guardian quotes entertainer Whoopi
Goldberg as saying. "It was something else but I don't believe it was
rape-rape. He went to jail and when they let him out he was like, 'You
know what, this guy's going to give me a hundred years in jail. I'm not
staying.' So that's why he left." The Associated Press quotes Debra
Tate, sister of Polanski's second wife, Sharon Tate, who "says Polanski
did not forcibly have sex with the girl, calling it a 'consensual
matter.' "
Again, the girl was 13, far below the age of consent. As a matter of
law, it could not have been a "consensual matter." It is true that the
use of force is not a _necessary_ element of statutory rape, the crime
to which Polanski pleaded guilty before fleeing the country to escape
the consequences of his guilt. It does not follow from this, however,
that the crime did not involve violence.
The victim's grand-jury testimony was unsealed a few years ago and
posted on The Smoking Gun [1]. Her description of the encounter is
consistent with forcible rape, or "rape-rape" in Goldberg's ugly
formulation. The victim testified that Polanski gave her champagne and
methaqualone, a sedative popularly known as Quaaludes that was often
used recreationally in the 1970s. She testified that despite being under
the influence of these substances, she said "no" at each stage of the
sexual encounter: when he kissed her, when he placed his mouth on her
genitals (or, as she put it in a heartbreaking malapropism, when "he
started performing cuddliness"), when he performed intercourse, and when
he sodomized her.
This testimony is not tantamount to a conviction, but neither is a plea
bargain an exoneration. Had Polanski been tried on the charge of
forcible rape, he would have had the opportunity to mount a defense, and
he might have convinced a jury that there was reasonable doubt of his
guilt. On the other hand, he might have been convicted.
In a similar case involving an adult victim, the rape charge might have
been plea-bargained down to assault or reckless endangerment--lesser but
still violent crimes. Sex with a child is so grievously wrong that it is
a crime even when it doesn't involve violence. It is a perversion of
logic to minimize Polanski's crime merely because the victim was young
enough that she could have been raped without force.
The other contender for most twisted Polanski defense comes from the
Washington Post's Anne Applebaum, in a Web post titled "The Outrageous
Arrest of Roman Polanski":
He can be blamed, it is true, for his original, panicky
decision to flee. But for this decision I see mitigating
circumstances, not least an understandable fear of irrational
punishment. Polanski's mother died in Auschwitz. His father
survived Mauthausen. He himself survived the Krakow ghetto,
and later emigrated from communist Poland.
To cite the Holocaust as an excuse just seems obscene. Hitler has a lot
to answer for, but all his crimes were committed long before 1977.
Applebaum raises another familiar pro-Polanski talking point:
The girl, now 45, has said more than once that she forgives
him, that she can live with the memory, that she does not
want him to be put back in court or in jail, and that a new
trial will hurt her husband and children.
One can certainly sympathize with the victim's desire to be done with
this--especially since some of Polanski's defenders are casting
aspersions on her in order to make their man look less culpable.
(Although her name has been made public, we've left it out of this item
as a small, if futile, gesture of decency.) After Polanski is
extradited, the judge should take the victim's views into account in
pronouncing sentence. But America does not practice vigilante justice.
Victims have the power neither to mete out punishment nor to grant
clemency. Further, Polanski's flight from justice is a separate matter.
If he is convicted, it is a crime against the state, not against any
individual.
It must also be said that the victim's ordeal would have been over
decades ago if Polanski had stayed to face his punishment. It would be
unjust to reward him for prolonging her plight even if it is what she
now says she wants.
[1]:
https://exmail.fldfs.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.thesmoking
gun.com/archive/polanskicover1.html
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.