The 1974 movie, Chinatown, is a classic noir film and, by most accounts, one of the best crime movies ever filmed. Written by Robert Towne and directed by Roman Polanski, the movie starred Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston as a man who raped his daughter, played by Dunaway. In one of the film’s most memorable lines, Huston says, “Most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time and the right place, they’re capable of anything”.

Three years later in 1977, in an unconscionable act of life imitating art, 44 year-old Roman Polanski pled guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. According to the charges, Polanski gave the girl champagne and a hypnotic-sedative tablet and then raped her. He was indicted on six felony charges that included rape, sodomy and providing a controlled substance to his victim. Polanski struck a deal, pleading guilty to one count of having sex with a minor in return for 42 days under psychiatric evaluation. But the judge rejected the plea deal at the last minute and Polanski fled to France, fearing that he would spend years in prison.

After his arrest last Saturday in Switzerland while attending the Zurich Film Festival, Polanski is fighting extradition to the U.S. where he still faces charges.

Supporters of Polanski argue that it’s been 32 years since the crime occurred and he is now 76 years old; his mother was killed in a Nazi concentration camp; his pregnant actress wife Sharon Tate was killed by followers of mass murderer Charles Manson in 1969, and the victim has forgiven him and wants the charges dropped. And the judge, they argue, reneged on the plea deal agreed to by the prosecution and defense.

Opponents argue that the statutory rape of a 13 year-old girl is a crime that should not go unpunished. If Polanski were not a celebrity, he would have been behind bars long ago. Besides, they say, he owes his debt to society and to the state of California, not strictly to the victim of the crime. Having a difficult childhood and having your wife brutally murdered would traumatize anyone. But they do not excuse the crime nor do they lead someone to commit statutory rape.

Polanski had opportunities to return to the U.S. and work out another plea deal with prosecutors long before his arrest last weekend in Switzerland, but he chose to remain in France.

In the movie, Chinatown, Noah Cross, played by Huston, never is charged or punished for the rape he committed. But it is time for Roman Polanski to pay for his crime and to face the fact that he, like Noah Cross, was “capable of anything.”