Switzerland’s refusal to extradite Roman Polanski for his rape of a 13-year-old girl 33 years ago has elicited mixed reactions. Some allow Polanski’s genius as an artist and award-winning director to eclipse his heinous crime, choosing instead to characterize it as a minor lapse in judgment. Others continue to demand a pound of Polanski’s flesh and decry his celebrity as the real reason that Switzerland chose to fly in the face of its extradition treaty. Woody Allen, perhaps feeling a special kinship with Polanski because of their creative ties and his own sex scandal, recently rallied to the 76-year-old’s defense, arguing that he had already paid his debt to society and earned his freedom.
There is no question that Polanski is a cinematic poet and perhaps on the surface it is hard to reconcile his talent with his admission that he plied a young girl with alcohol and then sexually assaulted her despite her protestations. Polanski accepted a plea agreement and plead guilty to the lesser offense of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor but that doesn’t change the fact that what he did constituted rape. Just because Polanski gave his victim Quaaludes and champagne and assaulted her in a posh Los Angeles mansion rather than violently in some dark alley, doesn’t change the inherent brutality of the offense itself. Dismissing the crime as a minor blip on one’s moral radar fails to acknowledge the serious emotional and psychological effects of sexual victimization.
While Polanski’s celebrity status may have influenced Switzerland’s decision to set him free, the Swiss are pointing the finger at US courts regarding ambiguity over whether Polanski already served his sentence.Polanski had been interned in a state prison for forty-two days for psychiatric evaluation prior to formal sentencing but fled before his punishment could be meted out so wherein lies the ambiguity? Forty-two days is hardly a punishment befitting the severity of his crime-a crime that was further exacerbated by his escape and ongoing absentia.
One of the tragic ironies in all this is that Polanskireceived the plea bargain not as a result of administrative convenience as is usually the case, but rather because the victim’s mother did not want to subject her daughter to the scrutiny and turmoil of a public trial. In the end, however, Polanski’s self-serving escape served to drag the drama out over the course of over three decades, robbing the victim of closure- one of the key things initially bargained for.
The victim, Samantha Geimer, claims that this latest development in the ongoing saga has resulted in a severe disruption of her life and that every headline causes her to relive an experience she has worked hard to forget. She has gone on record several times asking American authorities to drop the case against Polanski andperhaps this most recent development will mark the final chapter in this controversy. While I feel that Polanski should have paid for his crime and that no one despite their brilliance or affluence should consider themselves above the law, I feel compelled to give deference to the victim in this case. Too often the concerns, desires and expectations of victims are subjugated by our legal system and allowed to fade imperceptibly into the background. Now that Samantha Geimer is old enough to speak for herself, we owe it to her to listen.
By: Annette M. Juriaco
