I decided to take some time on this rainy Saturday to review the Roman Polanski case that has been resurrected with his recent ambush in Zurich.  I just finished the riveting documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (highly recommended and streamable on Netflix) and the picture that emerges from both the Prosecuting Attorney and the Defense is one of abuse of power by the unscrupulous, publicity-seeking presiding judge in the case.


Polanski actually complied with his original sentence, and served time he likely didn't have to.  The judge exploited psychiatric evaluation in custody as a punishment when he realized probation seemed the likeliest outcome of Polanski's case.  The irony of Polanski's fleeing the country is that Judge Rittenband was going to offer deportation as an alternative to serving the remaining month-and-a-half of his "evaluation" (and to avoid further embarrassment to the judge himself).

All parties agree that Judge Rittenband crossed the line into criminal conduct, for which he was essentially forced off the case after Polanski fled.  The Prosecutor in the case was sympathetic to Polanski: "I'm not surprised that he left under those circumstances."  The victim Samantha Geimer's attorney agreed: "[Polanski] was supposed to be treated fairly in court and clearly he was not."  In 1997 Geimer settled a civil suit with Polanski and publicly forgave him.

The continued outrage among Americans about Polanski's crime (he was charged with unlawful sex with a minor) is particularly vexing, considering the overnight canonization of Michael Jackson after the pop-pedophile's death last summer. Jackson was charged with seven counts of child molestation and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent. 

This is not to excuse Polanski for plying his underage prey with champagne and quaaludes, it's only to point out that there seems to be something more at work here than simply revulsion at the crimes both men were charged with.  Even in The Stranger — for which sex columnist Dan Savage writes — I could not find a more philosophical take on Polanski than "Dude, this whole thing makes me feel weird and uncomfortable."

Most reactions were far less equivocal. 

Of the media circus around the original case, The Telegraph's David Gritten recalls "an ugly-minded media, which dubbed Polanski 'the poison dwarf', stressed his foreign origins, and described him in terms of thinly veiled anti-Semitism."

History seems to be repeating itself a little bit.  Americans, conservative and liberal alike, have a love of opportunistic sanctimony, and the outlines of the original crime provide right-minded people of all political stripes with plenty of material.  Throw in class privilege, which is, along with sex, a rich source of hypocrisy on all fronts as well, and who cares that Polanski came clean and served his court-ordered time for that crime?  Or if there was an abuse of power by the presiding judge?  or if justice, such as it is, has actually already been served?

As one commenter on The Stranger's Slog put it: "hang him high."

American justice at its finest.