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Roman Polanski is now in custody for having sex with a 45-year-old woman.

He did that that 32 years ago, when she was 13. You would think that by now it would be ? if not forgotten or even forgiven ? at least irrelevant. He's avoided capture for so long as he's lolled about in Europe, collecting kudos, and he's gotten so old ? 76 ? that it seems as though the reprehensible crime only exists in the sealed-away past.

And now that another woman ? a 61-year-old woman, who, when she was 21 (not as young as 13), murdered his long-ago wife and his never-born child ? has died, that other world seems impossibly distant and deceased. His victimizer Susan Atkins is dead, and the woman he victimized, Samantha Geimer, has settled with him. It might be part of the secret settlement, but Geimer does not want the old criminal charges pursued.

Nonetheless, the Swiss police arrested Roman Polanski when he touched down in Zurich to pick up another prize. Why did that happen?

"There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming," ministry spokesman Guido Balmer told The Associated Press. "That's why he was taken into custody."

Oh! There is memory, and there is law, and you cannot rise above it, not by extreme suffering or extreme old age, not by great fame or great accomplishment, and not by profuse reconciliation with the victim.

Roman Polanski has been called to account at long last.

Full post as published by Althouse on September 27, 2009 (boomark / email).