The new year brings a new ploy for Roman Polanski's legal restoration, which his attorneys now argue should be moved out of the polluted, prejudiced Los Angeles mire.

Polanski officially sought a dismissal of his 1978 statutory-rape case last month, when he cited the judicial trangressions laid out in the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired as the basis for his exoneration. Awaiting a ruling on that motion — which the LA district attorney declared useless until the fugitive director returned to the United States, likely obligating him to prison time — Polanski's lawyers have since determined that LA is the last place where their client would get a fair shake.

So Monday brought his latest motion to recuse the Los Angeles Superior Court from any involvement in reviewing the case; the publicity-whore judge who convicted Polanski may be dead, the reps say, but something about him sticking his dick in a 13-year-old may inflame the long memories of a legal system he defied by disappearing to France before his sentencing 30 years ago:

The prejudice became evident, the filing says, when a public information officer, Alan Parachini, told The Los Angeles Times in an e-mail message last month that the court’s standing position was that dismissal could not be considered unless Mr. Polanski returned to the United States.

The filing on Monday by Mr. Polanski’s lawyers said the court violated rules of judicial conduct by ruling publicly on a crucial issue that had never been addressed, as Mr. Polanski had never sought dismissal in the past.

The alternative? Who knows? We'd try Turks and Caicos first, where even vicious, vagina-kicking catfights have been scrubbed from the system as recently as last week. Las Vegas could work, too; they're kind of strict, but any court that serves sentencing-day smoothies can't be all bad. Suggestions?