Maybe if the judge assigned to the case hadn't been a total asshat this might have been resolved in the 70s.

Or if Polanski had worked within the system and appealed the case if he thought the judge was biased. Or voluntarily come back at any time in the past 30 years if a new judge could be assigned.

It was also a different time and place and lifestyle the likes of which very few of us can begin to imagine.

I can't imagine that even in the sexy Hollywood 70s it was okay to drug and rape a girl who was crying and saying "no." (I am sure it happened a lot in the 70s and is still happening, but I don't have a problem with saying it's not okay. If the sex had been consensual, you can argue different times, but rape is rape, yo.)

Yes, I deleted my half-post above that was going to make the point that the Rittenband argument holds no water. First off, we have a whole process to deal with asshat judges (of which there are tremendously many) and it is appeals. Not to mention, he died decades ago. Polanski doesn't have an excuse after that. It could and would have been dealt with in the 70s had he not flouted the law.

I'm afraid there might be someethig wrong with my mind that, as soon as I started thinking about this stuff, I had to go look up Ira Einhorn. [link] I couldn't remember his first name, but still.

Tech-minded Buffistas, how can I tell if I have 32-bit or 64-bit Windows XP?

I deleted my post because I regret wading into this discussion.

Is this in reference to the rape or running?

I'm saying it was the seventies in Los Angeles, a time and place that was extremely loose and experimental and had an anything goes atmosphere about it, especially in the circles in which Polanski traveled. You read any biography or memoir or historical reference to the time and place and you see it was just not anything that the majority of us would even have a passing acquaintance with. I'm not using it as an excuse for now but rather for the attitudes and mores of that particular time and place. I'm not saying they were right, they just were.

the attitudes and mores of that particular time and place.

I feel incredibly parochial even saying this, but I have a very hard time believing that even among the Hollywood beautiful people in the anything-goes 1970s, that drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl who repeatedly said "No" would be an accepted more.

I heard the NPR piece just now on All Things Considered about Polanski. It did not diminish my rage.

I'm saying it was the seventies in Los Angeles, a time and place that was extremely loose and experimental and had an anything goes atmosphere about it, especially in the circles in which Polanski traveled. You read any biography or memoir or historical reference to the time and place and you see it was just not anything that the majority of us would even have a passing acquaintance with. I'm not using it as an excuse for now but rather for the attitudes and mores of that particular time and place. I'm not saying they were right, they just were.

I don't understand what you're saying here. The relevant information isn't the mores of his social circle, but the laws of the state.