Former Stanford Swimmer Convicted of Rape

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461

@al2simon:
When I talked about the morality police, I was talking about the fact that the sex registry has been used where it shouldn’t have been used, like a 16 year old convicted of statutory rape of a 15 year old girlfriend (which is a perversion of the statutory rape laws, those were designed to protect an adult from having sex with an underage person, fair minded states also have Romeo And Juliet laws to protect teenagers. The law was not designed to allow some pissed off mother to get the boyfriend in trouble for taking her daughter’s virginity or someone who believes teens shouldn’t be having sex to use that to enforce their position, but that is how it is being used…and the person convicted can end up on the sex offender registry…

as far as not wanting to hire someone because of a past criminal offense, that is any employers right. Though I do think context is important personally, there is a difference to me between someone who has an assault rap because they got into a fistfight at 16 over a girl to someone who stabbed someone in a knife fight or beat someone up and robbed them. Likewise, why someone went bankrupt would be important to me, some large percentage of bankruptcies in this country are caused by a traumatic medical expense or catastrophic injury, those kinds of things are the big causes of bankruptcies, not credit card debt, not someone who is a loser, I would want to know the story behind someone I was hiring before making a decision like that, because I could be losing a very valuable employee. On the other hand, I likely wouldn’t hire a kid like this one, reading the facts of the case, even if in 10 or 20 years he finally decided to come clean and apologize, I would suspect it was about rebuilding his image rather than being about remorse.

As far as the kids family goes, I try (keyword try) to not assume the worst about families, good families produce crappy kids sometime, friend of mine who is one of the nicest, gentlest people in the world is struggling with a daughter who is an addict, and I would find it hard to believe he or his wife were the root cause (obviously, I don’t know everything about them). After reading the father’s letter,though, I can’t but assume that at least the father is an arrogant a, when you are writing a letter about a horrific incident and all you can do is talk about the impact on his son, and turn around and basically call the poor girl a drunken slut (the term promiscuity, I promise you, was not aimed at this don), and whine about the unfairness of him getting into this kind of trouble for 20 minutes of sex, he has to be some sort a, no feelings for the victim, no idea that maybe, just maybe, he forgot to teach the kid that sex is something between two people, not one using the other. My son is no angel, he has made some mistakes along the way, but the one thing I think he learned was other people deserve respect and to be treated as such, this kid and his dad come off (to me) as arrogant people who think the world revolves around them, no empathy, nothing. Put it this way, if the father worked wherre I worked and I read that letter, I would be looking for a way to can the guy as soon as possible, to me he sounds like a bigger creep than the son, and who would want to have someone with attitudes like that working with them? I could forgive a father for trying to support and protect his son, but this guy gives me the creeps, as a father, as a husband, and as someone who has a lot of young women he cares about.

462

@Pizzagirl I’d be willing to bet at least 85% of a time, the word thug is used in reference to a black male. It’s the same reason why this kid has his senior portrait used instead of a mugshot in most articles. It’s the same reason why Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Gardner were more attacked than Zimmerman and Wilson. It’s the same reason why this kid’s sentence is so ridiculous. “Thug” is a term I almost only hear from those in the Hannity camp to refer to black kids, and trying to reclaim it just so it doesn’t seem as racist as it is doesn’t seem like a good use of time.

This kid had all the advantages to make it out of the legal system unscathed (race, class, the stigma against rape victims), and I’m extremely happy it’s blowing up in his face right now.

463

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I wish some of these women supporting the criminal here would take a few moments to imagine, really imagine being this young lady. Waking up in an ER, discovering your panties are missing, having the police, nurses, etc. reconstruct what had happened…think about, really think about a complete stranger having you in that position and really imagine the actual physical assault to your (unconscious) genitals!! How the h-e double hockey sticks can anyone think HE should be coddled here? This just makes me sick. Seriously, the thought makes me get that lump in my throat of pure disgust.


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@VaBluebird Which women are supporting him? Here on CC or his friends??

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I don’t think he will be unemployable forever and I don’t think he should be (nor should most felons). He did a terrible thing and should pay a very steep price, but there has to be a path back. I believe some are finally recognizing that not all felons are the same and not all should be perpetually unemployable. That is just the path back to a life of no hope and to crime.
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I agree and so many of the millennials want to work for themselves. He can always take that route. And I am also willing to bet that with all the support he seems to have in Dayton, he would be employable there as well.
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Wanting to work for yourself and doing so are two different things. Some self-employed careers require licensing, and he probably wouldn’t qualify.

It’s very easy to think that one can just 'work for themself." I work for myself. It isn’t easy. You don’t make much at the beginning. Many people never make much. Plenty of people fail…in fact, most fail.

He doesn’t have a family business to fall back on. His family doesn’t likely have the means to set him up in a business. Likely his parents will be nearly bankrupt after all of this. Surely they have mortgaged their home to the max already.

Sure, if his family were wealthy, they could buy some sort of business and let him manage it…but that’s not likely going to happen. The truth is that once you have a felony on your record, getting a GOOD job is almost impossible.

A friend of mine married a self-employed independent insurance agent…he was very successful… He ended up molesting her child. He was arrested and served 3 years. After release, he couldn’t get his license back. He was college educated with many years of insurance experience. He lost everything because my friend sued him on behalf of her child and the courts awarded a huge judgement. He has to live with family since he can’t support himself.

This was someone who knew how to “work for himself” and had done so for 20+ years. But with a felony and registered sex offender on his record…

I’m not saying that this S kid won’t ever find employment. He’s young, he probably will at some point. But be realistic. When and who and what kind of job? He wanted to be a surgeon. This is a Stanford kid who had big dreams. He’ll pay the price…even if it’s not in prison as long as we all think he should be.

He’ll likely have a hard time even getting back into a college to finish his degree.

I would bet that this young girl will sue him in civil court. If a judgement is made, any future earnings will have to go towards that debt.

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I read that Jack Montague, the basketball player, is working. There is always going to be a network that wants to take care of these guys
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I don’t believe that JM has been convicted of a felony, has he? I think that he’s only been expelled. BIG DIFFERENCE.

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Re #456 - @CaliCash thank you for linking that. It humanizes 2 of the heroes in the story.

The article shows photos of the Good Samaritans and, below them, the mug shot of the rapist.

There is good in the world.

466

In terms of employment after a felony conviction… there is a vicious cycle of recividism here:

  • Employers fear recividism, so they refuse to hire released prisoners to good honest jobs.
  • Released prisoners have little chance of being self-supporting with good honest jobs.
  • The truly reformed ones end up being dependent on others, homeless, etc..
  • Those of more marginal ethics may find that criminal work is the easiest way to earn money when good honest jobs are closed to them.
  • Eventually, they get arrested, convicted, and sent back to prison.
  • Then they get released years later, still unable to find good honest jobs...
467

I don’t really understand why people don’t understand the severity of the punishment. Sure we all understand the severity of the crime but setting a national media campaign against the judge and not understanding what a lifetime sentence of the sex offender registry really means, which the judge darn well knows what it means, is something i just shake my head about. Whether he spends 3 months in jail or 6 months in jail is really meaningless in the big picture. There are very few states where he would have gotten much much more prison time given a first offense, a clean record and the actual circumstances of the case. I don’t know…I’m repeating myself. As far as poo-pooing his future as if it’s all going to be OK in ten or twenty years - that’s a pipe dream i just hope he becomes a contributing member of society so my tax dollars aren’t supporting him. In Michigan he couldn’t even get a builder’s license. Maybe he can be a roofer…not sure those dudes need a license.

468

@momofthreeboys It’s called justice. Is it so wrong to want justice? Is it that wrong to believe that someone should be punished for injustice?

I’m really curious what your reaction would be if one of your three sons were to be in Brock’s position. I struggle to believe you would see it any differently than how his dad sees it. Just drunk boys being drunk boys. Who cares if someone’s life is ruined? It’s not that big of a deal. She probably wanted it anyway. After all, she did rub his back.

469

As the conversation here has also been about how Turner will likely have negative consequences for the rest of his life including job limitations, I hope these good samaritans are rewarded for what they did - I’m hoping as they attempt to enter the work force after graduation, future employers find out what heroes these two guys are; I saw a brief clip of NBC interviewing one of the guys and it was very clear how difficult he found it to talk about, and I feel sorry that he has in essence been traumatized, too. But I hope they both are recognized as role models for how men should behave.

470

It seems very much that the men were traumatized. Jonsson is not speaking to the press anymore.

471

When people start characterizing what I might do I’m out and find comments getting pretty offensive. Carry on. My thoughts on the legal aspects of the sentence were pretty well covered in the first two days of this thread.

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What @momofthreeboys said: "I don’t really understand why people don’t understand the severity of the punishment. "

What the victim says: “The probation officer weighed the fact that he has surrendered a hard earned swimming scholarship. How fast Brock swims does not lessen the severity of what happened to me, and should not lessen the severity of his punishment. If a first time offender from an underprivileged background was accused of three felonies and displayed no accountability for his actions other than drinking, what would his sentence be? The fact that Brock was an athlete at a private university should not be seen as an entitlement to leniency, but as an opportunity to send a message that sexual assault is against the law regardless of social class.”

What momofthreeboys said: “Sure we all understand the severity of the crime but setting a national media campaign against the judge and not understanding what a lifetime sentence of the sex offender registry really means, which the judge darn well knows what it means, is something i just shake my head about.”

What the victim says: “He is a lifetime sex registrant. That doesn’t expire. Just like what he did to me doesn’t expire, doesn’t just go away after a set number of years. It stays with me, it’s part of my identity, it has forever changed the way I carry myself, the way I live the rest of my life.
As this is a first offence I can see where leniency would beckon. On the other hand, as a society, we cannot forgive everyone’s first sexual assault or digital rape. It doesn’t make sense. The seriousness of rape has to be communicated clearly, we should not create a culture that suggests we learn that rape is wrong through trial and error. The consequences of sexual assault needs to be severe enough that people feel enough fear to exercise good judgment even if they are drunk, severe enough to be preventative.”

What momofthreeboys said: “Whether he spends 3 months in jail or 6 months in jail is really meaningless in the big picture. There are very few states where he would have gotten much much more prison time given a first offense, a clean record and the actual circumstances of the case.”

What the victim says: “I told the probation officer I do not want Brock to rot away in prison. I did not say he does not deserve to be behind bars. The probation officer’s recommendation of a year or less in county jail is a soft time-out, a mockery of the seriousness of his assaults, an insult to me and all women. It gives the message that a stranger can be inside you without proper consent and he will receive less than what has been defined as the minimum sentence. Probation should be denied. I also told the probation officer that what I truly wanted was for Brock to get it, to understand and admit to his wrongdoing.”
What has he done to demonstrate that he deserves a break? He has only apologized for drinking and has yet to define what he did to me as sexual assault, he has revictimized me continually, relentlessly. He has been found guilty of three serious felonies and it is time for him to accept the consequences of his actions. He will not be quietly excused."

What momofthreeboys said: “As far as poo-pooing his future as if it’s all going to be OK in ten or twenty years - that’s a pipe dream i just hope he becomes a contributing member of society so my tax dollars aren’t supporting him. In Michigan he couldn’t even get a builder’s license. Maybe he can be a roofer…not sure those dudes need a license.”

What the victim says: “Your life is not over, you have decades of years ahead to rewrite your story. The world is huge, it is so much bigger than Palo Alto and Stanford, and you will make a space for yourself in it where you can be useful and happy. But right now, you do not get to shrug your shoulders and be confused anymore. You do not get to pretend that there were no red flags. You have been convicted of violating me, intentionally, forcibly, sexually, with malicious intent, and all you can admit to is consuming alcohol. Do not talk about the sad way your life was upturned because alcohol made you do bad things. Figure out how to take responsibility for your own conduct.”

What momofthreeboys said: “I don’t know…I’m repeating myself.”
What the victim says: “Why am I still explaining this.”

473

@Bromfield2

We have only spotty statistics on sexual assault prior to about the mid-80s but there is actually good evidence that assaults were MORE common prior to the present but “acquaintance rape” wasn’t thought of as “real rape” but rather boys will be boys.

I can’t find the article (I’m looking because it’s bugging me) but here’s a very short NPR piece that I just found while looking: http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/11/30/366348383/the-history-of-campus-sexual-assault

474

“I’d be willing to bet at least 85% of a time, the word thug is used in reference to a black male.”

Yes, but I’m tired of having the meaning of a perfectly good word that can be applied to anyone of any race “hijacked” by people with an agenda. He’s a thug. He just happens to be a white thug, that’s all.

Re the good samaritans - in the footnotes of wikipedia you can get to the original source data. All 4 witnesses on the scene (the 2 Swedish bikers and the 2 guys who then came out of the house and helped call 911 and direct the police to the specific location) are clearly named, as are the names of some of the Stanford girls who were friendly with the victim and her sister and who had invited them to the party in the first place.

475

In some states, it isn’t. In some states employers can only take past convictions into account in limited circumstances. You also can’t refuse to hire someone who declared bankruptcy in some states except in very, very special circumstances.

Nobody else has commented yet on Turner’s Owen Labrie-esque “makeover.” Mug shot shows kid with much longer hair, perhaps a trace of a beard, and apparently weighing significantly more. Hey, maybe he did eat less due to anxiety, but to me at least he looks a LOT younger with the close to a crew cut hair style and weighing a lot less than he does in the mug shot.

One more thing you ought to realize . It’'s not that tough to avoid the registry. One estimate is that one in six sex offenders change their names, often by stealing someone else’s identity, and live lives unencumbered by the restrictions. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/sex-offenders-change-identity-study_n_1703282.html

476

Those Swedish graduate students truly are heroes. I would like to think most young men would have acted as they did, but I’m not sure they would have, especially if the perpetrator was a member of the same sports team, the same fraternity, or even just a friend. We need to make sure that young men know they are expected to intervene in situations that do not seem right, even when they have strong social ties to the perpetrator. I think if this message is strengthened, a lot of these crimes could be prevented. This, obviously, would benefit BOTH the victims and the would-be perpetrators.

This sort of messaging has been very effective in the drunk driving context. " Friends don’t let friends drive drunk" should be expanded to “friends don’t let friends commit sexual assault.”

There needs to be explicit examples developed and taught as to appropriate interventions in different categories of circumstances. The behavior of those Swedish graduate students should be held out and explicitly taught as an example for how to act in the most extreme and tragic situations, but certainly there were likely opportunities for intervention before it got to that point.

Brock Turner is 100% to blame for his own actions. But if SOMETHING could have been done to prevent his horrible acts BEFORE they occurred, before the Swedish grad students came along – by those who saw him at the party with the victim, for example – I wish with all my heart that someone would have taken those preventative actions. We collectively need to teach young people how and when to intervene.

477

The crew cut hair style picture appears to be a picture pulled from a Stanford swimming site, so that would have been taken months BEFORE this whole incident, not after. Again, I’m as saddened by this whole thing as everyone else, but we don’t have to act as though every move the guy ever made is full of evil.

478

Page 3 describes who qualifies to get off the sex offender’s list in Michigan (link is from MichiganCourts.gov.) No idea if Turner would ultimately qualify under the applicable law in California or Ohio. But clearly some people in Michigan who are on the list do qualify to file the petition and won’t be relegated to “roofer” status.

And if the rates charged by our last “roofer” are any indication, I am betting those guys maintain a very decent standard of living.

http://courts.mi.gov/Administration/SCAO/Forms/courtforms/sexoffenderregistration/mc406a.pdf

479

Being a convicted felon does indeed make your life a lot harder in a lot of ways. But really, if that’s enough punishment for a heinous violent act, why even bother with prisons at all? Because some crimes are deemed worthy of it for reasons including deterrence, removing the person from society, etc. I certainly think this crime is worth at least a few years, first offense or not.

480

People that get called “thugs” don’t have mommy and daddy reduce their sentence to the lowest possible allowed. Their headlines don’t refer to them as a “Stanford Swimmer”. They don’t have the familial support necessary to be the leading defense case of the moment, and they definitely don’t have the support of the system.

People get treated differently, and they get characterized differently.

You can say that’s wrong, but you calling Brock a thug doesn’t make things more “equal”, it just ignores the disparity.

Even so, I’m assuming we aren’t going to see eye-to-eye on this.