A Look at the Roman Polanski Fiasco

sue-ann rowley contributes b&b’s first guest blog … about Roman Polanski’s law troubles …

Imagine a woman is in the home of someone she barely knows. She is there for a modeling job. She is plied with champagne and quaaludes. In a weakend state due to the narcotics, she is then forced to engage in sexual activities against her will. The entire time she pleads with the man to stop. She tells him that she doesn’t want to. He does not stop. This is a textbook definition of rape. Now imagine that that woman is in fact a 13-year-old girl.

This is Roman Polanski’s crime.

Some argue that Roman Polanski is convicted of what basically amounts to statutory rape, and that the act he committed, therefore, was not malicious or forceful. They assert this in their pleas to let him go, forgive him his minor transgressions so that he may continue to contribute to the cultural landscape of our times. It is true that Polanski did plead guilty to “engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor” and not a more serious charge indicative of the heinous crime he committed. Make no mistake, though, that he did commit a severely heinous crime. He fed a little girl drugs and forced himself upon her, repeatedly and against her will. She begged him to stop but he didn’t. Polanski is a rapist, plain and simple. Furthermore, he is a pedophile and deserves to be punished as such.

In their further attempts to see Polanski freed, his champions point out that the victim, Samantha (Gailey) Geimer, has since requested that the case be dropped and that Polanski be allowed to live his life freely. What most don’t understand, however, is that the Prosecutor’s cannot simply “let the case go.” Polanski plead guilty. He was convicted. He fled the jurisdiction before being sentenced. He has been a fugitive for the past 30 years. An open case has remained on Los Angeles County’s books for that period and can only be closed once resolution has been reached. Additionally, the Los Angeles County Prosecutor’s Office does not represent Samantha (Gailey) Geimer. They represent every man, woman and child in that county and have a duty to show to ever single citizen of the county that rape and child molestation will not be tolerated, and will be punished, no matter who the perpetrator is.

Now I’ll turn to another alleged kink in the county’s case, that being supposed misconduct between the prosecutor’s office and the judge on the case (in 1977). It is said that a member of the prosecutor’s office, not on the case, approached the judge about the plea arrangement that had been made between the parties. It is said that this prosecutor influenced the judge, unduly so. While this communication can be considered ex parte and inappropriate, said remedy for this infraction would simply be to reassign another Judge to handle sentencing. At no point would the plea have been thrown out, in most part because Polanski had been advised at his plea hearing that the Judge sentencing him could, at any time, decide not to abide by the plea arrangement. If that were to occur, the plea would be withdrawn and they’d be back at square one. At no time would dismissal of the charges against him be appropriate.

That being said, it astonishes me that so many would support Polanski, and so openly. He is no different from any other pedophile, any other rapist. His cinematic achievements do not give him the right to commit atrocities against others. They certainly don’t give him a golden ticket to violate little girls. Perhaps the French elite and the Hollywood “royalty” should consider what justice they would deem appropriate if the victim was their child, or even themselves. What message do we send to children, to the world, when we say raping a child is okay, but only if you’ve got an Oscar?