There is no exception. But the issues involving Mr. Polanski are varied, including his right to a fair trial. It's a balancing process with the different issues, and his lawyers are not trying to throw out years of stare decisis.
In the case of Jamie Leigh, those who committed criminal acts want us to believe that they had the right to do so, and withholding her right to redress just because they had her sign a document so they would hire her.
The criminal courts will never look kindly on that kind of situation, because it is simply bad law.
They don't want to see any more cases of this kind, so they will uphold the same criminal law that has applied in the past and maintain the right to redress as usual. They will not allow people to sign that right away just because they needed employment to make a living.
But in this case it is not the judicial arm of government, but rather the legislative one. Yet it is the same basic principle of providing redress to victims of crime that guides both. Neither will allow you to sign that right away. Arbitration was never intended to apply to criminal issues, only civil ones and then with the intent to limit awards of monetary damages in order to reduce costs.
And if "constitutionality" were truly more than a smokescreen issue, you would see Democrats voting along with Republicans. Here the Republicans have engaged in party politics, and to some of them, Halliburton is like a sacred cow. I notice that Lindsey Graham also voted against passage. He has been taking heat lately for his support of environmental legislation favored by Democrats. He may have wanted to be seen as loyal by other Republicans in regard to the Franken amendment.
If it had been Republicans who had introduced the bill instead of Franken, then they would have all supported it.