Polanski's absence could render dismissal request a long-shot
The director's refusal to come to the U.S. to fight his sex abuse case because he risks arrest could work against him.
At a hearing next month, the words "People versus Roman Polanski" will ring out in a courtroom for the first time in 30 years. Those gathered are certain to include prosecutors, defense attorneys and a throng of reporters, but the Oscar-winning director is not expected.
That empty chair at the defense table, experts say, makes his request for a dismissal of the three-decade-old sex charge a legal long-shot.
"As long as Polanski's a fugitive, he doesn't have the legal right to have the system of justice entertain any motion he might make," said Roger Jon Diamond, a defense lawyer who represented another high-profile fugitive, convicted serial rapist Andrew Luster. "He may have a dead-bang winner, but the court won't address it until he comes back."
Polanski, a French citizen, has lived in Paris since 1978 when he fled sentencing on a charge of unlawful intercourse with a minor. If he returns to the United States, authorities will arrest him immediately as a fugitive. Papers filed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court suggested Polanski was unwilling to face handcuffs at the airport and a possible prison sentence. His lawyers took pains to label the filing a request that the judge could execute on his own initiative rather than a defense motion, which would probably require the presence of the director.
"It is very creative lawyering," said Loyola Law professor Laurie Levenson. "They want it both ways. They want the court to do it a favor by dismissing the case, but they don't want Mr. Polanski to come here and have to face the music."
A lawyer for Polanski declined to comment on his legal strategy.
"The position of Mr. Polanski is fully set forth in the filing," attorney Chad Hummel said.
The request alleges misconduct by a prosecutor and the trial judge and argues that the wrongdoing was so egregious that a judge should clear Polanski "in the interests of justice."
The director said he had intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 but left the country after Judge Lawrence Rittenband, now deceased, announced plans to sentence Polanski to prison over the wishes of the victim and the recommendation of the Probation Department. In an HBO documentary televised in June, a former deputy district attorney who believed Polanski should get prison time acknowledged having backroom discussions with the judge about what sentence the director should receive.
