The justices seem particularly concerned, says Harriet Ryan in the L.A. Times, with sorting out "Polanski's allegations of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in the original handling of the case" -- memorably conveyed to the public in the 2008 documentary "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" -- "enough so that they took the unusual step of injecting themselves into the details of a specific case." They wrote: "We exhort all participants in this extended drama to place the integrity of the criminal justice system above the desire to punish any one individual, whether for his offense or for his flight." I guess a justice system that punishes both crooked judges and fugitive child rapists is too much to hope for?

Polanski's lawyers haven't said whether they'll be taking the judges' advice, but Loyola Law professor Laurie Levenson told Ryan, "It's a pretty darn good solution for Polanski. This could all go away and we would all kinda scratch our heads and wonder what has taken 30 years."

Many also reasoned that his creative brilliance ultimately outweighed his criminal misdeeds. More than 100 artists -- including Hollywood heavyweights Woody Allen, Pedro Almodóvar and Wes Anderson -- signed a petition calling for Polanski’s release. France’s Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was similarly appalled: "A man of such talent, recognized in the entire world, recognized especially in the country that arrested him -- all this just isn't nice." It just wasn’t nice. How often is that said about the punishment of an admitted child rapist? Of course, Whoopi Goldberg infamously argued on "The View" that what Polanski did with that little girl wasn’t actually, you know, "rape-rape." Some contended that Polanski hadn’t known the girl’s real age and that he had been taken advantage of by her fame-seeking stage mom.

This was a mainstream, accepted response until Salon’s Kate Harding stated a simple, no-nonsense fact: "Roman Polanski raped a child," she wrote in Broadsheet. She was one of the very first writers to pull back the curtain on his apologists:

Let's keep in mind that [he] gave a 13-year-old girl a Quaalude and champagne, then raped her, before we start discussing whether the victim looked older than her 13 years, or that she now says she'd rather not see him prosecuted because she can't stand the media attention. Before we discuss how awesome his movies are or what the now-deceased judge did wrong at his trial, let's take a moment to recall that according to the victim's grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, "No," then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm.

Throughout her exceedingly rational piece, Harding offered the crucial reminder that he had raped a child. It was a call to arms -- and a hugely successful one at that. Her post landed her an appearance on the "Today" show, Time magazine called it "the best, most comprehensive rebuttal" of Polanski’s supporters, and Newsweek highlighted her post as the most notable of the "smart and convincing" responses to his arrest. It restored sanity to the national conversation.

Naturally, this means devoted Polanski apologist Bernard-Henri Lévy is back at the Huffington Post, praising the court for a "wise decision" that "honors the people who took it."  Lévy, who seems not to understand the difference between "bail" and "freedom" (of course, history shows his subject also struggles with that one), has really outdone himself this time. He's thinking about a lot of things: How the efforts of Polanski's lawyers and supporters (such as Bernard-Henri  Lévy!) have finally paid off, how the director's wife and children must be feeling, etc. (Like  Lévy, I do feel bad for Polanski's kids, except I don't think their problem is that their father's name has been "ignominiously dragged through the mud" so much as that their father is a famous child rapist.) But mostly,  Lévy is thinking about

Roman Polanski, who I don't know, but whose fate has moved me so much. Nothing will repair the days he has spent in prison. Nothing will erase the immense, unbelievable injustice he has been subjected to. Nothing will take away the hysteria of those ones who have never stopped pouring contempt upon him, hounding him through hatred and asking for his punishment as if we were living the darkest and most ferocious hours of the McCarthy era all over again.

Funny, I'm still thinking about that 13-year-old girl's grand jury testimony describing how Polanski drugged and raped her. Stupid McCarthyite hysteria! It's got me so muddled, I can't even properly appreciate the "immense, unbelievable injustice" that's been done to her rapist. And  Lévy's almost certainly right: Nothing will take that away. 

The filing further went on to say that since Polanski’s arrest last month in Switzerland, the woman has had “health-related issues” and had to contend with the “understandable displeasure of her employer and the real possibility that [she] could lose her job.”

It would be great if it were possible to mete out justice for a sex abuser while honoring the privacy of his victim, but in this case it’s not. The on and off attention she’s lived with for the past 30 years are nothing compared to the deluge of reporters who have been chasing her and her family over the past weeks. In addition, she’s had to contend with the very public and high-profile support her rapist has received from the entertainment industry, and a fair measure of subsequent disparagement of her own character. In an interview this week in the Atlantic’s online edition, author Gore Vidal sniffed, “Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of? … The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko -- that’s what people were calling him -- well, the story is totally different now from what it was then.” 

Her request for dismissal is a tough one for many to fathom. The Los Angeles Times scolded this weekend that "Polanski's victim is not judge and jury." In brushing aside her wishes, the paper said that "We empathize with [the victim], who has received about 500 media calls in recent weeks, but the case against Polanski was not brought to satisfy her desire for justice or her need for closure." Yeah, who does she think she is anyway, with her desires and needs?

It’s one thing to acknowledge the complexities of the legal system and the undiminished outrage at what was done to a young girl all those years ago. But it’s utter bullshit to plead empathy with anyone who has a phalanx of reporters on her lawn and an abuser whose outspoken supporters include Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson. If you haven’t been raped and sodomized, if you haven't been called a hooker by Gore Vidal, don’t say you know how she feels. I don’t. That’s why I haven’t named her. And that's why I'm sick to death of reading editorials saying that this isn't about her. It's exactly about her. It's not about every other rape case in the world, or the system, or some potential slippery slope. It's about letting the victim have a vote, about allowing someone who has been powerless set the terms herself. It's about her.

Her family lawyer once wrote, "Balances must be struck. In this case, the balance that has to be effected is between the interests of society as represented by the District Attorney, the defendant, and my clients." He described a "charged atmosphere that can only harm, and seriously harm her. … A stigma would attach her for a lifetime. Justice is not made of such stuff."

Those words were written in August of 1977. In the interim the sentiment has been repeated by Polanski's victim again and again, consistently over the years. A lifetime of harm and stigma. Enough. Forget Polanski’s requests for bail and the L.A. county’s pursuit of the case and consider the victim herself, and the words of her most recent court filing. "This statement makes one more demand, one more request, one more plea: Leave her alone."