04-01-2015, 02:36 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/us/der....html?_r=0
Dershowitz Seeks to Bring Close to Polanski Case
By MICHAEL CIEPLY and JOANNA BERENDTDEC. 15, 2014
Roman Polanski, a film director, wants to have the threat of extradition and jail time lifted, after fleeing the United States before sentencing on a charge of raping a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Credit Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse Getty Images
LOS ANGELES Alan M. Dershowitz, a lawyer whose celebrity clients have included the heiress Patty Hearst and the hacker Julian Assange, is seeking to lead what could be the final effort to end the legal case against the film director Roman Polanski, who fled the United States before final sentencing on a statutory rape charge in 1978.
In connection with a Los Angeles County Superior Court filing on Monday, Mr. Dershowitz, who is based in Massachusetts, is asking permission to represent Mr. Polanski in California.
The filing charged prosecutors with providing false information to support a recent attempt to have Mr. Polanski extradited from Poland. It also demanded a hearing aimed at closing his case, based partly on fresh testimony that a Superior Court judge, in 2009, had unethically prejudged issues related to Mr. Polanski's prosecution, and had a secret plan to jail him at least briefly, even while limiting his actual sentence to time served.
The filing is likely to draw new attention to a legal process that has risen and fallen in the public consciousness for almost four decades. It also caps a year in which seemingly dormant claims of sexual assault against Woody Allen and Bill Cosby found new life. Unlike Mr. Polanski, neither Mr. Allen nor Mr. Cosby was charged with crimes; however, they have been publicly excoriated for, and have strongly challenged, claims of illicit sexual behavior.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney, Jackie Lacey, declined to comment.
In October, the authorities in Poland questioned Mr. Polanski, who had been living in France, but declined to detain him following a request from the United States for his extradition when he was photographed at the opening of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. In 2010, Swiss officials ultimately ruled against extradition after detaining Mr. Polanski for more than nine months on a similar request.
The request by Mr. Dershowitz to represent Mr. Polanski opened what promises to be a broad legal and public-relations effort to lift the threat of extradition and jail time from Mr. Polanski, now 81. He was first charged with raping a 13-year-old girl, who has since identified herself as Samantha Geimer, in 1977.
Mr. Polanski was imprisoned for psychiatric evaluation under a plea agreement, but he fled before sentencing when he learned that Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, now dead, intended to impose additional jail time. He and his lawyers have since argued that Los Angeles prosecutors and judges repeatedly violated his rights, and that his sentence has been fully served. But officials have insisted that he must return before those claims can be heard.
Alan Dershowitz aims to represent Mr. Polanski. Credit Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
In his new legal effort, Mr. Dershowitz and Bart Dalton, who has been part of Mr. Polanski's legal team in recent years, challenge the behavior of Judge Peter Espinoza, who oversaw Mr. Polanski's case during a legal fight that erupted in late 2008. The dispute followed the release of a documentary film, "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," which described unorthodox and perhaps illegal procedures in the earlier conduct of the case.
In an affidavit filed with the new motion, a former public information officer of the court, Allan Parachini, describes encounters and emails that, he said, showed Judge Espinoza to have prejudged issues that had not yet been argued in court. A spokeswoman for the superior court declined to comment because the case was pending.
Mr. Parachini's affidavit also repeated his claim, published last year in The Los Angeles Daily Journal, that Judge Espinoza had expressed willingness to limit Mr. Polanski's sentence to the time he had spent in prison. But, Mr. Parachini wrote, the judge had decided first to let Mr. Polanski "cool his heels in jail" by delaying that ruling for weeks should he return.
In a statement, Mr. Dershowitz said he intended "to see that the integrity of the criminal justice system is preserved and to stop any further misstatements from our government to European nations" regarding the status of Mr. Polanski, who, he said, "has taken responsibility for his actions, served his sentence, and a remedy should now by fashioned by the court once and for all."
The new filing says that the recent extradition request falsely characterized Mr. Polanski as a "continuing flight risk" it points out that he appeared voluntarily for questioning by the Polish authorities and, the filing says, "deliberately omitted the fact that Polanski has already served the term of imprisonment imposed by the trial judge."
Mr. Polanski, a Holocaust survivor who was born in Poland, has said he would return there to shoot a film about an Alsatian Jew, Alfred Dreyfus, who in the late 19th century was accused of passing military secrets to Germany. The Dreyfus case, which ended in his exoneration, raised debate about anti-Semitism and prosecutorial misconduct.
But to shoot in Poland, Mr. Polanski and his backers have said, would require assurance by the Polish authorities that he would not be subject to extradition.
Dershowitz Seeks to Bring Close to Polanski Case
By MICHAEL CIEPLY and JOANNA BERENDTDEC. 15, 2014
Roman Polanski, a film director, wants to have the threat of extradition and jail time lifted, after fleeing the United States before sentencing on a charge of raping a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Credit Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse Getty Images
LOS ANGELES Alan M. Dershowitz, a lawyer whose celebrity clients have included the heiress Patty Hearst and the hacker Julian Assange, is seeking to lead what could be the final effort to end the legal case against the film director Roman Polanski, who fled the United States before final sentencing on a statutory rape charge in 1978.
In connection with a Los Angeles County Superior Court filing on Monday, Mr. Dershowitz, who is based in Massachusetts, is asking permission to represent Mr. Polanski in California.
The filing charged prosecutors with providing false information to support a recent attempt to have Mr. Polanski extradited from Poland. It also demanded a hearing aimed at closing his case, based partly on fresh testimony that a Superior Court judge, in 2009, had unethically prejudged issues related to Mr. Polanski's prosecution, and had a secret plan to jail him at least briefly, even while limiting his actual sentence to time served.
The filing is likely to draw new attention to a legal process that has risen and fallen in the public consciousness for almost four decades. It also caps a year in which seemingly dormant claims of sexual assault against Woody Allen and Bill Cosby found new life. Unlike Mr. Polanski, neither Mr. Allen nor Mr. Cosby was charged with crimes; however, they have been publicly excoriated for, and have strongly challenged, claims of illicit sexual behavior.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney, Jackie Lacey, declined to comment.
In October, the authorities in Poland questioned Mr. Polanski, who had been living in France, but declined to detain him following a request from the United States for his extradition when he was photographed at the opening of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. In 2010, Swiss officials ultimately ruled against extradition after detaining Mr. Polanski for more than nine months on a similar request.
The request by Mr. Dershowitz to represent Mr. Polanski opened what promises to be a broad legal and public-relations effort to lift the threat of extradition and jail time from Mr. Polanski, now 81. He was first charged with raping a 13-year-old girl, who has since identified herself as Samantha Geimer, in 1977.
Mr. Polanski was imprisoned for psychiatric evaluation under a plea agreement, but he fled before sentencing when he learned that Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, now dead, intended to impose additional jail time. He and his lawyers have since argued that Los Angeles prosecutors and judges repeatedly violated his rights, and that his sentence has been fully served. But officials have insisted that he must return before those claims can be heard.
Alan Dershowitz aims to represent Mr. Polanski. Credit Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
In his new legal effort, Mr. Dershowitz and Bart Dalton, who has been part of Mr. Polanski's legal team in recent years, challenge the behavior of Judge Peter Espinoza, who oversaw Mr. Polanski's case during a legal fight that erupted in late 2008. The dispute followed the release of a documentary film, "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," which described unorthodox and perhaps illegal procedures in the earlier conduct of the case.
In an affidavit filed with the new motion, a former public information officer of the court, Allan Parachini, describes encounters and emails that, he said, showed Judge Espinoza to have prejudged issues that had not yet been argued in court. A spokeswoman for the superior court declined to comment because the case was pending.
Mr. Parachini's affidavit also repeated his claim, published last year in The Los Angeles Daily Journal, that Judge Espinoza had expressed willingness to limit Mr. Polanski's sentence to the time he had spent in prison. But, Mr. Parachini wrote, the judge had decided first to let Mr. Polanski "cool his heels in jail" by delaying that ruling for weeks should he return.
In a statement, Mr. Dershowitz said he intended "to see that the integrity of the criminal justice system is preserved and to stop any further misstatements from our government to European nations" regarding the status of Mr. Polanski, who, he said, "has taken responsibility for his actions, served his sentence, and a remedy should now by fashioned by the court once and for all."
The new filing says that the recent extradition request falsely characterized Mr. Polanski as a "continuing flight risk" it points out that he appeared voluntarily for questioning by the Polish authorities and, the filing says, "deliberately omitted the fact that Polanski has already served the term of imprisonment imposed by the trial judge."
Mr. Polanski, a Holocaust survivor who was born in Poland, has said he would return there to shoot a film about an Alsatian Jew, Alfred Dreyfus, who in the late 19th century was accused of passing military secrets to Germany. The Dreyfus case, which ended in his exoneration, raised debate about anti-Semitism and prosecutorial misconduct.
But to shoot in Poland, Mr. Polanski and his backers have said, would require assurance by the Polish authorities that he would not be subject to extradition.
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.â€
― Leo Tolstoy,
― Leo Tolstoy,