something I'm kinda Confused about Roman Polanski

[boballab]

GBLW the controversy at the time was the dropping of the more serious charge of Rape by drugging to Unlawful Sexual Intercourse. According to what is in Slate since 1913 the age of consent in the state of California has been 18. I believe the changes you cite in at least 2001 deal with the adding of the 3 years older and younger statues to make the law more lenient in cases of a 18 year old having relations with a 16 or 17 year old.

The California Penal Code currently defines unlawful sexual intercourse as sexual contact with anyone under 18. The penalties become more severe as the age gap widens.

Some news sources have reported that at the time of Polanski's crime, the age of consent was either 14 or 16. This is incorrect. California's first penal code in 1850 proscribed sex with girls under the age of 10. The age of consent was raised to 14 in 1889, to 16 in 1897, and finally to 18 in 1913, where it has remained since that time.

As to the Question about statue of limitations the answer is:

Polanski molested his victim more than 30 years ago. Hasn't the statute of limitations run on his crime?
No. The statute of limitations for a crime requires the state to make a formal charge against the defendant within a certain timeframe. Polanski was charged within a few weeks of the crime and pleaded guilty. At this point, he is a fugitive from justice who is awaiting sentencing. Once you're a fugitive, the statute of limitations clock stops ticking.

Explainer thanks Gerald F. Uelmen of Santa Clara Law and Charles D. Weisselberg of Berkeley Law.
http://www.slate.com/id/2229853/

And Phantom as you can see the age of consent hasn't changed in California since 1913 I don't think your age 14 marriage example holds up. It doesn't look like the morals changed all that much, even after the age of free love.

[GBLW]

GBLW the controversy at the time was the dropping of the more serious charge of Rape by drugging to Unlawful Sexual Intercourse. ...

BUT, I was sure he plead guilty to 'Unlawful Sexual Intercourse' and I thought the judge changed the charges after he had plead guilty to the lesser offense. Now my memory could be completely faulty, but ...

Oh, the law on consent must have been changed in 1998, because I personally know a guy who was 16 and had sex with a 14 year old and got off in 1999. Right now he and the gal live just down the hall from me. (And I wish a. he hadn't gotten off, or b. he hadn't moved to Canada - then c. his music wouldn't be play all dang night on the weekends.)

[boballab]

They talked about that in the original link I put up about the age of consent in california.

Do WE PROSECUTE EVERY CASE?
No. We are evaluating each case independently to determine if
criminal charges are appropriate.

There is also this little thing:

In re T.A.J. (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 1350 [73 Cal.Rptr.331]. Court of Appeal, First District, Division 2.
From: (http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/ch ... ncy-13.htm)

A juvenile court petition was filed alleging that a 16-year-old boy had sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old female. The
petition alleged the child engaged in statutory and forcible rape. At the jurisdictional hearing the only issue was
whether the sexual encounter was consensual. The juvenile court found that the act was consensual and that the
statutory rape charge was true, but made no finding with regard to the forcible rape count. The child appealed,
contending that Penal Code section 261.5 was unconstitutional, both facially and as applied to him. Specifically, he
contended that the statute (1) violated his right to privacy under the California Constitution and (2) may not be
constitutionally applied to him since he was a member of the class the statute was designed to protect. The Court of
Appeal rejected both contentions. First, the court held that American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren (1997) 16
Cal.4th 307, did not confer upon children the right to engage in consensual sexual intercourse. "While we do not ignore
the reality that many California teenagers are sexually active, that fact alone does not establish that minors have a
right to privacy to engage in sexual intercourse. We accept the premise that due to age and immaturity, minors often
lack the ability to make fully informed choices that take account of both immediate and long-range consequences."
The court further found that the reasonable expectation of privacy that exists for a child deciding whether to have an
abortion (American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren, supra, 16 Cal.4th at p.373), "cannot be imputed to their
decision to engage in consensual sexual intercourse." On the child's second contention, the court noted that the
legislative intent behind the statutory rape law was to make illegal sexual intercourse both between children and adults
and between children. Although children cannot be prosecuted for felony statutory rape (unlawful intercourse between
an adult and a child) because the child is the victim in such a crime, there is no parallel with regard to misdemeanor
statutory rape, which by its terms involves sexual intercourse between two children.

As shown here between two minors its a misdemeanor offense which has a different sentencing guidelines.


Now what happened after the deal was made was entirely differnet then what you were orginally thinking. What happend was that another DA, not the one prositcuting the case, went to the judge and showed him pictures taken of Polanski in Munich partying with what was alleged two underaged girls. Polanski was allowed by the judge to leave the country before his Psych eval to finish his film project. The judge got pissed and was going to put him in Jail instead of giving him probation. As shown all he would have gotten was up to 1 year in county jail not even the state pen and he ran. That's right he ran because the judge might have given him time in the county jail and the 42 days in Psych eval would have counted towards it. Again the max he could of gotten was 1 year in county jail not that the judge would have sentenced him to that much. He could have gotten 2 months for pissing the judge off for partying in Munich instead of taking care of his business before sentencing. So 30 years on the run to avoid a piddly sentence.

[Phantom]

GBLW the controversy at the time was the dropping of the more serious charge of Rape by drugging to Unlawful Sexual Intercourse. According to what is in Slate since 1913 the age of consent in the state of California has been 18. I believe the changes you cite in at least 2001 deal with the adding of the 3 years older and younger statues to make the law more lenient in cases of a 18 year old having relations with a 16 or 17 year old.

The California Penal Code currently defines unlawful sexual intercourse as sexual contact with anyone under 18. The penalties become more severe as the age gap widens.

Some news sources have reported that at the time of Polanski's crime, the age of consent was either 14 or 16. This is incorrect. California's first penal code in 1850 proscribed sex with girls under the age of 10. The age of consent was raised to 14 in 1889, to 16 in 1897, and finally to 18 in 1913, where it has remained since that time.

As to the Question about statue of limitations the answer is:

Polanski molested his victim more than 30 years ago. Hasn't the statute of limitations run on his crime?
No. The statute of limitations for a crime requires the state to make a formal charge against the defendant within a certain timeframe. Polanski was charged within a few weeks of the crime and pleaded guilty. At this point, he is a fugitive from justice who is awaiting sentencing. Once you're a fugitive, the statute of limitations clock stops ticking.

Explainer thanks Gerald F. Uelmen of Santa Clara Law and Charles D. Weisselberg of Berkeley Law.
http://www.slate.com/id/2229853/

And Phantom as you can see the age of consent hasn't changed in California since 1913 I don't think your age 14 marriage example holds up. It doesn't look like the morals changed all that much, even after the age of free love.

Your facts are just a bit off you better recheck them ....at the time 1977 age of consent in CA was 16 ...it's changed to
18 since then ...(known by many as the Great Kiddy-Porn Panic)....but if she'd have agreed he would have been better off taking her to New mexico where the age of consent was 13 at that time .... But i only used the age thing to point out that people thought,behaved, and acted diffrently in 1977 then they do in 2009



Phantom

[boballab]

Phantom you claim that the two lawyers from the those two law schools in California is wrong but you haven't supplied one shredd of evidence that it is so. So until you can come up with something better then "I say so" as evidence I think I'll stick with the guys that teach law in California that say the Age of Consent was raised to 18 in 1913.

[ANTIcarrot]

Personally, I'm going to say that I hate child abusers of any kind, but in this case there are too many things which were 'shady' to say the least. I do recall thinking at the time that the DA and the Judge must have worked hand in hand, along with the victim, to set the guy up so he had no chance of defending himself.

There is some questionable material in the child's testimony. Particularly on page 29 line 15-20. When she uses the word 'cuddliness' (meaning cunnilingus) she seems to be talking about something she doesn't quite understand. It is worrisome that she might have been coached, or had her testimony tampered with in any other way.

The second thing I find troubling is that as a consiquence of the plea bargining, is that we never get to hear the testimony of the third person present in the house at the time of the crime. The whom who Roman spoke to before, during, and after the assult.

Lastly this did seem to come out of the blue, suggesting this might have been politically motivated. But it turns out the US authorities has been trying to get him for a number of years, and this is the first time their convoluted schemes has come to fruition. (You know how it is with evil overlords and their mooks...)

And of course I retain my prior objection to the law dictating reality in the face of evvidence. If they want to say I shouldn't drive over 70mph, that's fine. But when they start to say that no car ever made is capable of going over 70mph - and anyone who disagrees is a delusional criminal - then they're in the wrong.

None of this changes the essential content of the girl's testimony, or Roman's wilful submission of the plea bargin - which he then skipped out of because he found the psychological evaluation "too stressful." Check my Fur Affinity page and you'll see pictures of a 5 car pile up I was involved with. I'd have no sympathy with the car driver who caused it, irrispective of how sttressful he found the police investigation, or the knowledge that he killed someone.

I reverse my prior position. He should stand trial. However he still has the right to unbiased judgement; based on what he did, rather what the last twenty sex offenders the public vaguely remembers did. In today's America, infected by moral panic as it is, could he get that?