Polanski was charged with sex with a minor and forcible rape, and spent 42 days in jail under "evaluation." When a plea arrangement based on his accepting guilt but which would have released him for time served fell through, Polanski fled the U.S.

In France, where Polanski has lived since leaving this country, culture minister Frederic Mitterrand announced that he was "dumbfounded" by Polanski's arrest, and said that he "strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them." Prominent movie-industry figures expressed similar feelings.

Along with escaping the Holocaust in Poland, Polansky suffered through the murder of his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, at the hands of Charles Manson's acolytes.

In 2005, the girl - now married and mother of three children - declared: "He took sex from me and my innocence. I don't think it occurred to him that someone wouldn't want sex with him."  Although she obviously doesn't view Polanski in a positive light, the woman does not want the case pursued further.

What should be done about Polanski, who is now being detained by Swiss authorities? In recognition of his age, his accomplishments, the maturation of his victim - who has stated she doesn't want Polanski imprisoned - should he simply be forgiven his crime and allowed to live out his life?

Is this in any way a matter for psychological consideration?

Sequelae (Sept. 28): PT blog readers are overwhelmingly negative towards Polanski, and demand retribution; Hollywood and European filmmakers and cultural figures are appalled at Polanski's arrest.  A megabattle of cultural perspectives has shaped up.  I'm glad his victim seems largely healed, because this debate is going to become ugly.

Comments from PT readers:

"I can't imagine anyone taking your questions at the end of your post seriously. As you have a JD I can't imagine you not knowing whether the victim has forgiven Polanski, or he has made great movies, is entirely immaterial to the fact he subverted our legal process."

"You rape someone - you go to jail. That is how it is. If you rape someone, and then flee the country, you get even more jail time."

"This was a 13 year old girl and the issue of pedophilia doesn't cross your mind? What he did was sick. It was predatory and it is quite obvious that his only regret is that he got caught. To answer your question, how could this not be an issue of psychology?"

"The last place I expected to see the quasi-dismissal of Polanski's obvious pathology and crimes is here on the PT website. Yes, he should be in prison."

"I love all of Roman Polanski's films. Nevertheless, the bastard drugged, raped, and sodomized a thirteen year old girl. Take a look at Samantha's picture on Google images and see how young and innocent she was back them. You might come to the conclusion that the courts should hang the SOB."

"What I don't get is why the French cultural minister was dumbfounded that Polanski was arrested. Does he think that Polanski is such a fine movie director that we should forget that he raped a 13-year-old girl 32 years ago? The minister has no culture to speak of."

"Yes, I feel he should be in Jail. I am sorry for the little girl he did this too, and I know she believes he should not go to jail now. But, this is more than just her. It is to protect all the little girls that this happens to and show that justice will be served for people that do this to innocent victims."

"'Millions and millions of people love his work, he's a brilliant guy, and he made a little mistake 32 years ago, what a shame for Switzerland,' says Otto Weisser, Polanski's friend.  Giving a child alcohol and drugs to then rape and assault her is now a 'little' mistake.  Polanski is a slap in the face of every raped child. And so are his supporters."

Meanwhile sentiment in Hollywood and among the cultural elite around the world supports Polanski. As the Times headlined: "Swiss Move Against Polanski Outrages His Sympathizers."

According to The Times:

"Nearly 100 entertainment industry professionals, including the movie directors Pedro Almodovar, Wong Kar Wai and Wim Wenders called in a petition for Mr. Polanski’s release, saying: 'Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision. . . .'

Jack Lang, a former French culture minister, said that for Europeans the development showed that the American system of justice had run amok.  While Mr. Polanski had committed 'a grave crime,' Mr. Lang said, 'he is a great creator and artist, and there’s a sentiment here that pursuing someone for a crime committed 30 years ago, in which the victim has decided to drop the case, is unreasonable, a kind of judicial lynching.'"

Here is a full bodied defense of Polanski by conservative columnist Anne Applebaum, of the Washington Post, one of many who call Polanski’s arrest - or, on the other side, who call defenders of Polanski - “outrageous.”

"Here are some of the facts: Polanski’s crime — statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl — was committed in 1977. The girl, now 45, has said more than once that she forgives him, that she can live with the memory, that she does not want him to be put back in court or in jail, and that a new trial will hurt her husband and children. There is evidence of judicial misconduct in the original trial. There is evidence that Polanski did not know her real age. Polanski, who panicked and fled the U.S. during that trial, has been pursued by this case for 30 years, during which time he has never returned to America, has never returned to the United Kingdom., has avoided many other countries, and has never been convicted of anything else. He did commit a crime, but he has paid for the crime in many, many ways: In notoriety, in lawyers’ fees, in professional stigma. He could not return to Los Angeles to receive his recent Oscar. He cannot visit Hollywood to direct or cast a film. [This is like Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, where the killer is sabotaged by his own unresolved conscience.  Applebaum argues that Polanski fared far worse than he would have if he had respected legal processes from the start.  Of course, that's the way it's supposed to be.]

He can be blamed, it is true, for his original, panicky decision to flee. But for this decision I see mitigating circumstances, not least an understandable fear of irrational punishment. Polanski’s mother died in Auschwitz. His father survived Mauthausen. He himself survived the Krakow ghetto, and later emigrated from communist Poland. His pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered in 1969 by the followers of Charles Manson, though for a time Polanski himself was a suspect." [In other words, Polanski suffered from two diseases.  In addition to the disorder that drove him to sexually assault a young girl pointed out by a PT commenter, Applebaum identifies another disease that made Polanski flee to avoid punishment.  What seems remarkable is that he was released after his 42-day psych eval given that he was tormented by these conditions.]