Quote:
Originally Posted by powerclown
Call me a simpleton, but its the only aspect of this sordid affair that interests me. Talking about the actual crime itself. I don't know why you are being so paranoid -- you have at it any way you want.
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I think the crime in itself was odious and outrageous enough as to make additional manifestations of outrage irrelevant. Polanski a monster and pedophile? Sure, but restating it again and again won't change that.
But there is a very important issue at play here, one that goes far beyond the crime itself. This case made it to the appellate courts before, and was dismissed because they required that Polanski was present. If he is extradited, it will in all likelihood make it to the appellate court again, and then we are talking about a precedent being set. Right now, if a judge does not accept the terms of a plea bargain, the DA and the defendant have either try to reach a new, acceptable one, or the defendant has to go to trial. In this case, a DA has admitted publicly that he coached the judge in the case on how to make Polanski serve prison time in a way that could not be appealed and went beyond the terms of the plea deal.
I think that it is unfortunate that the original DA accepted the deal, and certainly Polanski should have received a harsher penalty. But I don't think that the seriousness of Polanski's actions should be enough to set a precedent where plea deals are used as traps, where a lesser sentence is offered for a guilty plea, and then replaced with a more serious one. I am also not comfortable with the idea that escaping that sort of trap can send a person to prison for 40 times the amount of time of the original sentence.
These things will likely be decided in the appellate courts, and as such set dangerous precedents. It is a pity that to preserve certain basic rights we would have to let Polanski get away with so much, but I really don't like the alternative, which is allowing DAs and judges to trap defendants with false plea deals.
The best outcome in this case, for me, would be for Polanski to be retried in the only charge that remains, which is unlawful sex with a minor. And in this case, given the reluctance of the girl to testify or be a part of that, it would be unlikely that he would serve time.
I don't like the message that those with resources can escape justice, but I dislike the message that judges and DAs can lie and trap defendants even more.