About goddamn time.

There's pretty good evidence that the judge was biased and the trial was stacked against him. The victim has repeatedly asked that the prosecution be dropped, and said that the demand by a judge that he show up in person to appeal his verdict was completely ridiculous.

Again: the victim has asked that the case be dropped.

Then that'd be an entirely different situation, now wouldn't it? And I'm not sure what the use of contemplating that situation would be.

Apparently, he visited Switzerland all the time, and even owned a house there. The prosecutors in LA say this time they just happened to have enough notice that he'd be in country to get the extradition balls rolling.

He claims that he and the prosecutors reached a deal for him to plead guilty, but when it came time to do the sentencing the judge was going to rewrite the deal. So he fled. (I have no idea whether this is true.)

Netflix Instant View has Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired available. It's a pretty in-depth documentary about the crime and trial. It makes it pretty clear that Polanski is a scumbag that is plenty guilty of the crime, but that the shenanigans of the judge basically let Polanski get off nearly scott-free. Once the judge realized that he was going to be tarred and feathered in the press, he decided that at the final sentencing portion of the trial, he was going to go back on his agreement (which was legal for him to do) and sentence Polanski to a legitimate prison for a legitimate length of time.

What the judge had done was let Polanski use a very lax diagnostic prison, in which Polanski was allowed to leave and continue making movies, which would be considered time served. It was a farce, but Polanski himself is to blame for the judge going back on his word. While in Europe, Polanski allowed himself to be photographed with young models and partying it up. At that point, the jig was up.

Definitely worth watching before making too many judgments about the case.

I think he should be prosecuted but in an age of limited resources for law enforcement I would much rather have them working on stopping active threats.

Not quite sure why having the victim want the case dropped matters. Crimes are about the state vs the accused. There is a major public interest. Also, very rare in rapes that the victim wants to bring prosecution(for myriad reasons, many of them psychological), but rapists still need to be brought to justice.

Not that I have any sympathy for the child rapist, but one could argue that the fact that he can never enter the United States ever again makes it difficult for him to pose a threat to anyone covered by the jurisdiction of American law enforcement. I still think he needs to face justice, but I think the idea that he is an active threat is a weak one.

Nope. The victim has repeatedly stated that she doesn't want the case to be prosecuted, but that's different than it not being a rape. And it was clearly rape: here's the victim's grand jury testimony.

He very clearly raped a 13 year old girl, and most likely not the only one. He got away due to his affluence and a idiot judge. I can understand the victim not wanting to go through another traumatic trial, especially due to her age and in the manner in which she was raped, but this is scumbag needs to face jail time.

Not as far as I can tell no (IANAL). Sentence and toss him in.

I simply posed that as a thought experiment since you said you find it hard to get worked up over an old case. Imagine if your family had gone through it, and the person was never brought to justice.

Sorry, started writing mine before you posted. Wasn't intentionally ignoring your post. While she can write a letter to the court requesting the case to be dropped, it isn't binding in any sort of way. It was a criminal case, California v. Polanski, meaning the DA office was prosecuting, not just for her, but for society in general. From the articles I've read, she was more concerned with the media fiasco (being hounded day and night, being accused of making it all up, etc.) than with whether or not he was guilty. Keep in mind her family brought Polanski up on civil charges as well that was settled for an undisclosed amount.

Finally, an interesting article on the LA times website stating that the attorneys for Polanski filed dismissal motion in July alledging, among other things, the DA office never tried to extradite him and therefore the case should be dismissed. And seems that the DA office was none to thrilled about being called out on it and finally took action.