Word: polanski
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...Polanski originally faced six felony charges related to the drugging and rape of then 13-year-old Samantha Geimer in 1977. He eventually pleaded guilty to one count of having unlawful sex with a minor, but left the country in 1978 after being convinced that the judge in the case, the now deceased Laurence J. Rittenband, meant to backtrack on a plea agreement and send him back to prison. Polanski's most recent attempts to have the case dismissed faltered because of a chicken-and-egg legal loop. Polanski refused to appear in court in person for fear of arrest...
...district attorney's office denies there is any linkage between potential allegations of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct and Polanski's Sept. 26 arrest in Switzerland. It also provided a statement detailing previous extradition efforts, including an attempt to arrest Polanski, now 76, while he was in Israel in 2007. But the recent legal motions on Polanski's part seemed to have rolled into his apprehension in Switzerland, after years of apparent inactivity in a case that is far more complicated than just an unpunished sex crime, which is how it has been debated through the week. (See a list...
Late in 2008, Polanski sought to have the charges dropped after an HBO documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, detailed claims of judicial and prosecutorial wrongdoing during the time of the director's original arrest. In the film, the then Los Angeles deputy district attorney, David Wells, says he met with Rittenband without the presence of defense counsel to argue for more jail time for Polanski. Wells was not himself an attorney on the case but he was a lawyer working for one of the parties, the state of California. The California Code of Judicial Ethics forbids judges to engage...
...film's allegations, however, became central to Polanski's late 2008 appeal. In February 2009, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza, citing Polanski's fugitive status and refusal to appear in court in person, ruled against his request, but also indicated that he was open to arguments that misconduct had occurred. Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who was at the hearing, says Espinoza "was open to the argument that Polanski should not have to do any more jail time and that the court had been wrong to renege on the prior deal...
Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, denied that Polanski's arrest had anything to do with his recent court filings, but rather was part of an ongoing effort to apprehend him. "We've been doing this involving this particular fugitive since one day after the bench warrant was issued in 1978," Gibbons told TIME, "and we've been continuing to do it throughout that time period. There have been other efforts to arrest him, [but] they were unsuccessful. This particular effort was successful. I can't say anything more than that." Los Angeles prosecutors...