Roman Polanski Transcript Shows DA’s Concerns About Judge’s 1977 Conduct

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Film managing director Roman Polanski fled the United States later on learning a Los Angeles judge planned to renege on an before understanding and imprison him for sexually abusing a 13-year-onetime girl in 1977, a former prosecutor confirmed in testimony a decade agone, according to newly unsealed court documents.

Testimony by retired Deputy District Attorney Roger Gunson from a previously sealed transcript — and obtained belatedly Sunday by The Associated Press — supports Polanski’southward claim that he left the state for France on the eve of his sentencing in 1978 because he didn’t think he was being treated fairly in court.

The transcript largely verifies what was already widely known, with the Oscar-winning manager long contending he was being mistreated by the legal system.

According to the transcript cited by the AP, Gunson said during 2010 grand jury proceedings that the approximate overseeing the director’south case had broken a promise to judgement Polanski to time already served, and instead planned to send him to prison.

“The estimate had promised him on ii occasions … something that he reneged on,” Gunson said. “So information technology wasn’t surprising to me that, when he was told he was going to be sent off to country prison … that he could non or would not trust the estimate.”

Polanski defense attorney Harland Braun said in 2017 that he believed the transcript would ostend a plea deal negotiated in 1978 calling for Polanski to exist sentenced to time already served backside bars.

Braun maintained then that Polanski has already served more than than enough time, including time he spent at a state prison house in Chino in the tardily 1970s for a pre-sentencing diagnostic examination and also in jail and under business firm abort in Switzerland in 2009 as Swiss authorities considered an extradition asking.

It was unclear if the release of the transcript would have any impact on Polanski’s case. Braun could potentially petition a judge to formally sentence the director to time served without requiring him to exist present, meaning he would no longer be considered a fugitive.

Simply similar requests accept failed in the past, with prosecutors insisting Polanski render to the United States for sentencing.

The Los Angeles County Commune Attorney’southward Office last week dropped its opposition to the release of the grand jury transcripts. In response, a land appeals court chop-chop ordered the documents to be unsealed.

“This case has been described past the courts every bit `one of the longest-running sagas in California criminal justice history,”‘ Commune Attorney George Gascón said final week. “For years, this function has fought the release of information that the victim and public have a right to know.”

Gascón said his role has “adamant information technology to be in the interest of justice to agree to the unsealing of these transcripts” of Gunson’south airtight-door testimony based on “careful consideration of the victim’s wishes, the unique and boggling circumstances that led to his conditional exam and my commitment to transparency and accountability for all in the justice system.”

In a ruling Wednesday ordering the release of the transcripts, the land 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled “there is no factual or legal basis for the conditional deposition transcript to remain sealed.” The appeals courtroom ordered the trial court to grant the motion to unseal the documents.

The DA expressed his pleasance at the court’southward society on Wednesday.

“We are pleased the appellate court agreed with both the victim and our office about the need for transparency,” Gascón said. “The court’s decision helped united states move toward upholding our responsibility to tell the public the truth, and to listen to survivors. Nosotros hope it gives her a small measure of assurance that eventually, she tin can have some measure out of closure in this decades-long litigation.”

In June 2017, the victim in the Polanski case appeared in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom to inquire that the drawn-out criminal case against the fugitive Oscar-winning director come to an end.

“… I would implore you to consider taking activeness which can finally bring this thing to a close as an deed of mercy to myself and my family,” Samantha Geimer told then-Superior Court Guess Scott Gordon.

The judge denied that request a little over two months later.

In his August 2017 ruling, Gordon wrote that Geimer’s testimony was “dramatic prove of the long-lasting and traumatic effect these crimes, and defendant’s refusal to obey court orders and appear for sentencing, is having on her life.”

The judge cited a 1976 California appellate court panel’south ruling in noting that “a court may not dismiss a case merely because it would be in the victim’southward best interest.”

In a argument posted Tuesday on Twitter shortly later on the district attorney’s proclamation most the transcripts, Geimer wrote, “I, more than well-nigh, appreciate the rights Marsy’s Constabulary afforded victims of law-breaking many years after my case. More importantly, our justice arrangement demands that all who are defendant, charged, or convicted of a crime must be treated fairly and their rights respected fully. The release of this testimony is a long overdue footstep in that direction. Justice must strive to find the truth in all cases.”

Geimer added that she was “deeply grateful to DA Gascón and all those in the DA’s Office who accept demonstrated that, even in the face of sure criticism, the rule of police is more than but words on paper to be used at the discretion of those who seek to benefit. The rule of law must exist deservedly practical to all.”

Polanski — an 88-yr-quondam director, writer and producer who won an Oscar in 2002 for “The Pianist” — fled to his native France in 1978 before his sentencing. Southern California authorities tried for years to bring him back to America.

Source: https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2671715398656/unsealed-documents-show-judge-planned-to-imprison-polanski

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