jazzguitarman:

You clearly mean the current DA because the DA's office at the time decide this rape was only a statutory rape and agreed to accept a plea.

The current DA will not decide if he does time or not but instead a judge unless they decide to have a trial. Now a trial, 30 years later would be wild, but this case does have some complex legal questions, like the original's judges misconduct.

Yes, Polanski raped that girl and he could of gone to trial for that back then but what we have now isn't a clear cut case for the state.

Let me explain a little something in regard to plea bargains. It does not mean that the DA's office decided that it was not a rape or that it was only a statutory rape. Most of the time a plea means that the DA's office is not sure that they have enough evidence of the actual charges to get a conviction in court so they will allow the person to plea down to a lesser charge to make sure that they do get some form of punishment for their crime. Now the person can refuse to take a plea and take their chance in court and some do and some win and some lose. In taking a plea a person admits that they are guilty of something and it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone believes that they are only guilty of that charge.

Now you have to remember that the DA has to prove the case beyond a "reasonable doubt", and from some of the posts that I have seen on here, the fact that she willingly went with him, willingly took the drugs, willingly took off her clothes and that she supposedly wasn't a virgin even though she said no numerous times, would cast some "reasonable doubt" even at this time. At the time of the rape the defense attorney would have ripped her apart for her promiscuous ways and that would have cast "reasonable doubt" with many people and there was a good chance that he would have got off with nothing.