Originally posted by Robtard
There's no need for a new trial, he pleaded bargained and pleaded guilty already to a crime. He should be held accountable for that, along with any time for breaking his parole and being a fugitive for 30-odd years.
Did you not read anything i said so i'll spell it out for you.
I most certainly have read the girl's testimony and the rest of the 239 page PDF document at http://www.talkleft.com/legal/polanskimotion.pdf. I've read other documents, too, and watched the movie. The medical report found NO evidence of any force being used. The girl admitted that she had had sex before and had tried Quaaludes aged ten or eleven, some three to four years earlier. The housekeeper in a witness statement said "...she only looked at the girl one time and thought she was approximately 18 years old and felt she was a girl trying to get into the movies. She also stated that Mr. Polanski and the girl acted as if they were lovers." (Verbatim from the above PDF)
She had already spent time alone with Polanski on previous occasions for photographic sessions. One person in the house at the time, stated: "She didn't appear to be distressed....she did not look like a scared little thing, you know...I don't feel basically that he [Polanski] would sodomize, forcibly sodomize and rape an unwilling girl...I have seen him as a man with compassion..."
And then the real kicker: "A request for a grand-jury hearing was made 'To avoid a circus-like atmosphere and allow the case to be presented with appropriate dignity and concern for the witnesses.'"
And yet a "circus-like atmosphere" is of the least concern to the authorities now!
We also know that neither the girl nor her mother wanted Polanski to do further jail time then and Mrs Geimer reiterated that she doesn't want him to serve jail time now, according to the LA Times on 27 Sep 2009:
"Geimer, now a mother of four, has said repeatedly and publicly that she thinks Polanski was treated unfairly and expressed a desire for the case to be resolved without prison time."
Primarily they only wanted him to express remorse. It may just be that the prosecution realised that it would not get all the charges to stick in a full trial and therefore the plea bargain was entered into. Given the degree to which the US judicial system now is completely ignoring the wishes of Mrs Geimer to drop the case, why would the prosecution back then have not thrown the book at Polanski if they could have won?
Then there are the on-camera admissions (in Wanted and Desired) that severe judicial misconduct ensued. Furthermore, the psychiatric report into Polanksi's behaviour recommended no further jail time. The deputy DA said it became obvious to him that the judge wanted Polanski deported, so that he was no longer around to embarrass the judge further. The defence later pointed out that the judge had no jurisdiction over matters regarding deportation and that it is illegal to impose an illegal condition on somebody serving time in custody, which, according to the defence attorney, was when actual illegal conduct (on the part of the judge) occurred.
When Polanski got wind of the stitch-up that the judge was planning, he fled. This did not surprise the defence. More to the point, it did not surprise the deputy district attorney, either.
The only thing Polanski plead guilty to was having consensual sex with a 13 year old. For which he was given a sentence and got completely screwed over. Its hardly like he fled at the first possible opportunity, he'd already been to Europe and back legally while on trial several times. Hardly the actions of a man wishing to 'escape justice'.
edit: and @ above, you are not going to get a retrial, because the victim or her family do not wish to take part.