Justice in Roman Polanski’s case will never be served, because his case is not about justice. It’s about this week’s opportunity for everyone who weighs in on it to grandstand as a defender of justice and protector of the underdog, each side conspicuously yanking the blanket of public attention to keep its own listing stack of arguments warm while leaving the salient points of the other side hanging. There’s no blanket big enough.

“He’s a child rapist!” — “He’s an artist!” — “He’s a child rapist!” — “He’s an artist!” — “A child rapist!” — “An artist!” — “A child rapist!” — “An artist!”

A plague o’ both their houses. He’s a child rapist and an artist.

In 1977, Roman Polanski, then 44 and a famous Hollywood director, raped a 13-year-old girl. He was drunk on champagne, he was high on Quaaludes, he got carried away. If she were of age, it would be a date rape — a bad move. And she was a child, so it was a really bad move.

People go to prison for that. Sometimes for years. The famous Hollywood director Roman Polanski served 42 days of psychiatric evaluation and expected his ordeal to be over with time served and probation. He was allowed to go abroad to finish the movie he was working on, but when he heard that the judge was considering making an example of him because of his celebrity status, and might, reneging on the plea agreement, put him away for another 48 days, Polanski chose not to return to the United States.

The man became a fugitive because he was too cowardly to admit that what he did was wrong (even in his memoir, Roman, published in 1985, he complained that the girl was a slut and seduced him*) and come back to possibly serve seven more weeks of jail time. Was that a fair punishment for raping a child? It was a slap on the wrist. The plea bargain agreement was ludicrous: he had been charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, and sodomy, and furnishing alcohol and drugs to a minor. These charges were dismissed, and he pled guilty only to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

Since 1977, he’s been living in France. It was not a secret. His name, as his supporters like to say, “is on the doorbell.” He’s traveled. He’s made movies, He’s published books. He’s given interviews. He owns property in Switzerland, and the Swiss authorities have never nabbed him for extradition before. Apparently, they weren’t asked until now. There’s no clear reason why he should be arrested now, although the Los Angeles County district attorney presents a whole timeline as proof that the county never stopped pursuing him — and what a lame timeline that is. “Submitted a provisional arrest warrant request to France on June 21, 1994.” Then what? Nothing, for eight years. “The District Attorney’s Office submitted an Interpol Red Notice that had been distributed in 2002.” You don’t say. And? The Interpol failed to look Polanski up in the phone book? Because again, nothing happened until seven years later, when the LA County DA’s office was “informed that Polanski was scheduled to appear at a film festival in Zurich, Switzerland. An application for a provisional arrest warrant was prepared to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of International Affairs. It was executed by Swiss authorities on Sept. 27, 2009.”

That’s 32 years of an obviously high-speed chase after a man who’s been living a high-profile life — as distinct from hiding in a cave — and, it appears, never raped a child again. At 76, he’s not a danger to society. The demands for justice do not come from the need to protect the children of the world from Roman Polanski. They come from a desire to smite. And the pitch of these demands is such that one starts checking prices on pitchforks and torches.

Those who insist that Polanski pay his debt to society like to evoke the ordeal of his victim. Except that the victim has moved on. She got a settlement from him; she forgave him; and she doesn’t want him to go to jail, at his age. Above all, she doesn’t want all this sudden attention, which is unhealthy for her and her family. Nobody’s listening. Justice must be served, the victim must be avenged by the society, and if she doesn’t want avenging, she obviously doesn’t know what’s good for her. There’s no need to force the reluctant victim to cooperate for the sake of saving the rapist’s future victims. In the case of Roman Polanski, there’s never been another victim that we know of, and there are not likely to be any more. Samantha Geimer doesn’t want to be dragged through the courts again. She doesn’t want her husband and children in the middle of this orgy of self-righteousness. But when the society is in an avenging mood, the victim’s right to her own boundaries means nothing. Worse yet, she stands in the way of the society collecting its debt.

Here those who would see Polanski prosecuted have something of a meeting of the minds with his colleagues who carefully ignore the existence of the victim in the first place. Polanski’s tragic biography is highlighted, as is his artistic résumé, while the child rape goes tactfully unmentioned. What is mentioned, instead, in the histrionic petition signed by everybody who is anybody in Hollywood and European cinema, except Luc Besson, is

Nous avons appris avec stupéfaction . . . By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this.

The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country, where he assumed he could travel without hindrance, undermines this tradition: it opens the way for actions of which no-one can know the effects.

Nice. Declare film festivals a sanctuary for all attendees. (What? Since when? Is this a petition or a memo?) Insinuate that a tawdry crime like child rape falls in the same category as political speech against “certain States.” Avec stupéfaction, indeed. What a flurry of activity caused by witnessing one of their own treated like a member of the hoi polloi, which, the solipsistic luminaries believe, probably will bring ruin to the whole world of art, very soon, next Tuesday at the latest. The horror. The horror!

These arguments were already dismissed by an appropriate South Park episode:

NAMBLA Leader: Rights? Does anybody know their rights? You see, I’ve learned something today. [Stan and Kyle look at each other] Our forefathers came to this country because… they believed in an idea. An idea called “freedom.” They wanted to live in a place where a group couldn’t be prosecuted for their beliefs. Where a person can live the way he chooses to live. [Stan, Kyle, and Cartman look at each other] You see us as being perverted because we’re different from you. People are afraid of us, because they don’t understand. And sometimes it’s easier to persecute than to understand. [Stan and Kyle look at each other, then at the NAMBLA leader]

Kyle: Dude. You have sex with children.

NAMBLA Leader: We are human. Most of us didn’t even choose to be attracted to young boys. We were born that way. We can’t help the way we are, and if you all can’t understand that, well, then, I guess you’ll just have to put us away. [Shots of the agents, then the Brando look-alikes, then Stan and Kyle, who look at each other, then at the NAMBLA leader]

Kyle [slowly, for emphasis]: Dude. You have sex with children.

Stan: Yeah. You know, we believe in equality for everybody, and tolerance, and all that gay stuff, but dude, fuck you.

Kyle: Seriously.

Both sides claim that Roman Polanski is in the middle of this mess only because he is a celebrity. Both sides see his celebrity status as a detriment to the cause of fairness and justice. Both sides are right. From the beginning of the scandal, he had got legal breaks that would be denied to an ordinary child rapist. That was unfair. What’s also unfair is that were he not a celebrity, the Los Angeles County DA’s office would have never spent the time and resources doggedly (albeit erratically and inefficiently) pursuing a one-time offender across continents and over the course of three decades while he didn’t bother to hide and his victim didn’t demand closure. A former prosecutor wouldn’t be “embellishing” facts to “butter up” his role in the debacle — further weakening the legal case against Polanski.

The guy is not a pedophile. Pedophiles don’t stop. Polanski never molested a child again. If the Los Angeles County DA Steve Cooley wasn’t all choked up on the glorious opportunity to star in his own drama as a tireless protector of the downtrodden from a predatory film director, maybe he would have noticed that the state of California is broke and the prisons are overcrowded. Is it really that important to make room for a tiny old man whose original sentence might have been a lousy 90 days? Or, quite possibly, to get him into court just to have the case dismissed on the grounds of judicial misconduct? No, what’s important is who gets to call the shots. After the arrest was announced, Cooley declared that Polanski “has been trying to get it resolved on his terms, but it’s going to be on the terms of the Los Angeles County justice system.” I bet Cooley is already daydreaming about Bruce Willis playing him in the movie. Yippie ki yay, mo– child rapist.

Roman Polanski has made a lot of movies that many people consider art. He also made a big, stunningly ugly mistake. But it’s not about his self-serving colleagues as ardent defenders of his (and their own) status above mere mortals, nor about a posturing DA whose office had failed for over thirty years to bring in a fugitive but suddenly got a cramp of righteous ire. Certainly not about the multitudes belatedly locking up their nubile daughters and howling for blood.

It’s about one man who should finally decide who he is. Who should finally own his life — the tragedies, the art, the mistakes. And think about how he is going to wrap it.

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* Because this line of self-defense has always worked so well for Humbert Humbert, the most sympathetic character ever. Ever.

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