I picked this up at HP. If you haven’t read the transcript, don’t do it, it will make you sick… If I were Dictator, I would have Polanski shot….!

“I know it wasn’t rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don’t think it was rape-rape.” – Whoopi Goldberg

“…. Maybe Whoopi Goldberg can take a look at the following transcript and then explain to us which kind of rape this is. Is it a rape-rape? Or is it just a plain old, garden variety rape?
The following is from the transcripts of the 1977 Grand Jury hearing of Roman Polanski. I skip spaces when I jump forward in the document. To see the whole thing, go here….”

Read more at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-seitzman/the-good-kind-of-rape_b_305748.html

Best regards,

Econolicious

I agree that Polanski should be extradited and brought to justice. His status and fame should neither shield him from prosecution, nor hinder his defense against prosecution.

This is a good time to diligently evaluate the prosecution of the criminals who collaborated in the implementation of torture. The principle of equal and impartial justice is the cornerstone of democracy.

Best regards,

Econolicious

That said, she is not the only victim here. Polanski committed two crimes: rape in 1977 and international flight to avoid prosecution 1978-2009. Felonies are prosecuted in the name of “The People of the State of California,” not the immediate victim, and in the case of flight, the victim is the state as a whole.

Mitterrand said he has spoken with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and that Sarkozy “shares his hope for a rapid resolution to the situation which would allow Roman Polanski to rejoin his family as quickly as possible.”

However, in cases where the disagreement is over capital punishment, I expect our government to make vigorous use of its power to compel extradition. That doesn’t mean launching missiles, but neither does it mean sending a sternly worded letter and leaving the matter at that. Shielding a fugitive is not the behavior of an ally, and if a nation has such little regard for us that it will harbor someone who has harmed us, it should be prepared to lose the benefits of our friendship.

If someone committed a violent crime in Turkey and then asked to be spared extradition on the grounds of the terrible conditions of the Turkish prison system, I would hope we would put him on the first plane to Istanbul. They may do things differently, but they are our allies and that is it. Indeed, I think it is disgraceful that we have not bundled Luis Posada off to Havana, regardless of our lack of an extradition treaty; it would be an excellent goodwill gesture, and beyond that the right thing to do.

Our courts are supposed to provide justice, not revenge. If Polanski got what he deserved, then his sentence might be rape. We substitute jail time, knowing that an arbitrary number of years is not equivalent. It is only enough to provide justice.

The fact that fugitives like Polanski are not extradited to the US quickly may be the price we pay for having a prison system that so often goes beyond the bounds of justice or lands far short of it. It could be that it is not that other nations are not willing to pursue these criminals, but that they are unwilling to hand them over to such a country as ours.

I don’t think the solution to this problem (if this is the problem) is not to strong-arm well-intentioned people into cooperating with a justice system that they don’t trust.

Denied the opportunity to use their talents in the service of their country, they began to operate what they called ‘The Operation’… They would select a victim and then threaten to beat him up if he paid the so-called protection money. Four months later they started another operation which the called ‘The Other Operation’. In this racket they selected another victim and threatened not to beat him up if he didn’t pay them. One month later they hit upon ‘The Other Other Operation’. In this the victim was threatened that if he didn’t pay them, they would beat him up. This for the Piranha brothers was the turning point.

On some level, though, the comparison is unfair to Rich; Rich’s crime was a monetary dispute with the IRS, not a physical assault on a thirteen year-old girl.