Whether you side for or against Roman Polanski, one has to wonder why the state of California is “stalking an aging, 76-year-old man who has admitted his guilt and was long ago forgiven by his victim,” writes Patrick Goldstein in the Los Angeles Times. California’s legislature is chopping the state's prison budget and grappling with overcrowding—an especially inauspicious time for the LA County district attorney's office to be spending some of our few remaining tax dollars seeing if it can finally put Roman Polanski behind bars."
Though Polanski’s crime is “disgusting,” it certainly didn’t go without punishment. “The life story of Polanski, who was a fugitive as a boy and is now a fugitive as an old man,” is a tragedy—and “whether the LA County district attorney's office has its way or not, it is not a story that can have a happy ending. The real tragedy is that he will always, till his death, be snubbed and stalked and confronted by people who think the price he has already paid isn't enough.” (More Roman Polanski stories.)