Today a three-judge appellate panel granted self-exiled film director Roman Polanski an emergency stay in proceedings that had been scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. His lawyers had filed the appeal after an L.A. judge had rejected their motion to bar the L.A. County Superior Court system as a venue for Polanski's attempts to have three-decade old charges against him dismissed. The appellate judges' decision suggests that Polanski's charges of gross judicial prejudice against him, raised last year in an HBO documentary, might be gaining traction. Polanski is not in the country and was not to appear at tomorrow's hearing, which is yet to be rescheduled. For now the big losers are the parking lot companies who would have profited from the massive contingent of media that had been expected to attend tomorrow's hearing.

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