The exact same thing is true of Roman Polanski, who long ago would have been free in the US had he not fled his sentence after being convicted. The only reason Polanski still has detention in the US hanging over his head is that he evaded the sentence.
I used to think that Polanski’s case was rather open and shut (what he did was not excusable in any way), but the way the judge behaved in his case was rather disturbing.
