This came over the AP 10 . 21 . 2009, about 4AM this morning EST: Switzerland gets formal U.S. request for Roman Polanski’s extradition.
Some Thought on Roman Polanski’s Extradition
While I’m political, I don’t like to get political in this blog, but I’ll make an exception. Rather than focus on Roman Polanski or the the crime, I want to first focus on that thing called “The Constitution of the United States,” the idea that we are a nation of laws, not men, and that one of the founding principles of our Republic is “equal protection under the law.”
Justice Department officials and the Los Angeles County district attorney have a fiduciary duty to uphold state and federal laws.
That’s their job.
Let’s look at the Oath of Office for the Los Angeles County District Attorney:
Every person on his admission shall take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California, and faithfully to discharge the duties of any attorney at law to the best of his knowledge and ability. A certificate of the oath shall be indorsed upon his license. (Origin: State Bar of California, Code Civ. Proc., §278.)
What’s the Oath of Office for every official in the United State Justice Department?
I (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
So why is everyone here asking Justice Department officials and the Los Angeles County district attorney to turn the other way and not uphold the laws of CA and the United States (I’m assuming that fleeing the country is some kind of federal offense that gets the F.B.I. involved)?
Jon Siegel of LAW PROF on the LOOSE sums up the case some in Hollywood have made for Polanski:
As far as I can make out, some people think Polanski should be let off because (a) he’s famous, (b) he’s a great artist, (c) he’s been through a lot in his life, (d) it’s been a long time since he committed the crime, (e) the victim has forgiven him and would rather the whole thing just went away, and (f) there was some governmental misconduct in the initial proceedings.
Siegel then effectively dismantles each of these arguments:
I would hope we could agree that (a) and (b) are irrelevant. We’ve endured a spate of celebrity crimes. Celebrities don’t have a license to break the laws that the rest of us have to live with. The law should be enforced even-handedly. Of course, the law is generally more lenient on first-time offenders than on habitual criminals, so Polanski is entitled to the same break that any first-time offender who is generally a good person would get. But no break for being a famous artist.
(c) could be relevant — we have taken to considering a defendant’s harsh upbringing when passing sentences — but it doesn’t get him wholly off the hook. At most it gets him a reduction.
(d) is not wholly irrelevant, but it’s mostly Polanski’s own fault. The matter could have been resolved 32 years ago if he hadn’t fled the jurisdiction, and he could have come back to face the music any time.
(e) is also not wholly irrelevant, but it’s not just the victim who needs protection; it’s also other 13-year-olds who need protection from other adults, including other adult celebrities.
(f) is relevant but the judge who engaged in the irregular proceedings has died and another judge will now be making the decisions about Polanski’s fate (assuming he gets extradited). So this issue is reduced.
I conclude that Polanski should face the music. Again, if some 40-something accountant you hadn’t heard of seduced a 13-year-old girl with alcohol and drugs and then had sex with her, and then skipped the country, I don’t think we’d be arguing about whether it’s unfair to catch up with him later and throw him in jail (Polanski’s Ancient History).
Do I have empathy for Roman, for what he’s going through? Yes.
Do I have sympathy? No, I can’t.
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