United States Should Continue to Extradite Roman Polanski

¶ … extradition case regarding film director Roman Polanski is a rather sordid affair. According to the information available on March 10, 1977 the 43-year-old Polanski had a sexual escapade with a 13-year-old girl named Samantha Jane Gailey (now known as Samantha Geimer; Schwarzbaum, 2013). According to testimony provided by Geimer to a grand jury Polanski had gotten permission from her mother to photograph her for a spread in the magazine Vogue.

According to the reports the session took place at the home of actor Jack Nicholson who was on a vacation; however, Nicholson's then girlfriend Anjelica Huston was there but did not witness the incident although she was concerned and knocked on the bedroom door several times in an effort to find out what was happening (Schwarzbaum, 2013). According to Geimer's testimony Polanski shot photos of her drinking champagne while topless. He also reportedly made her take a Quaalude and then performed vaginal, oral, and anal sexual acts on her (Schwarzbaum, 2013).

Geimer reported that she resisted and told him that she did not want to have sex with him; however, Polanski later reported that the sex was consensual and that he did not drug her (Schwarzbaum, 2013).

Numerous charges were filed including forcible rape and furnishing a child with controlled substances; however, Geimer's attorney arranged a plea bargain in order to keep her of court and Polanski pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with a minor a felony as in California an adult having sex with anyone under the age of 14 is statutory rape (Schwarzbaum, 2013). Polanski accepted the plea bargain and spent 42 days in a California state prison to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

He was released afterward to finish a film he was working on and to await sentencing. Apparently Polanski at first believed he would get probation; however, he later learned that the judge was considering sentencing him to prison and deportation. Once released from the California state prison Polanski fled to London and then later to France to avoid extradition (he is a citizen of France; Schwarzbaum, 2013).

Because, extradition issues are often decided by treaties and France has a policy of not extraditing its own citizens (Legifrance, 2005) requests by United States officials to extradite Polanski were denied. Since fleeing Polanski has basically stayed out of countries that would extradite him; however, he was arrested in Switzerland in 2009 following a United States extradition request (Day, 2015). In 2010 the extradition request was rejected and Polanski was released (Day, 2015).

Polanski was later again detained this time in Poland in January 2015 and the United States filed an extradition request; however, the decision was adjourned on May 22, 2015 and a deadline of August 8, 2015 has been set for a response regarding the extradition (Day, 2015). Polanski should be extradited to the United States because he was charged with a serious felony rape case, pled guilty, and then fled the country in order to avoid imprisonment.

Even though this has been going on for over 30 years there is no statute of limitations in this particular case because Polanski had already been charged and he pled guilty (Palmer, 2009). Moreover, the whole issue of the failure to appear charge is itself a crime as well; therefore, the United States continues to try to extradite Polanski and make him pay for his criminal behavior (Palmer, 2009).

If the authorities in the United States simply say "well it's been a long time, let's forget it all" they are simply giving in a criminal who has been able to avoid.