If you want to feel worse about what happened Buzzfeed posted a statement the victim read at the sentencing . I was angry and in tears byou the end.
And yes, this illustrates rape culture and privilege. I doubt the sentence for a poor minority who works at Wal-Mart would be 6 months.
Here is the survivor’s statement. As a survivor myself, I couldn’t make it through all of it but I encourage people to read it:
From the article, “The judge said he feared a longer sentence would have a “severe impact” on Turner.” Well, perhaps that would have been ok. I’m sure that what he did has had quite an impact on the victim. The short sentence is really disturbing.
Re #38
Depends on the county. In Santa Clara County, judges are up for election every six years, but only if someone challenges.
The California state Supreme Court justices face a retention election every twelve years.
Thanks for posting the victim’s letter, @romanigypsyeyes. She is a wonderful writer. I hope and pray that she will get to a better place.
ETA - from what the victim mentioned, the probation officer’s report sounds really biased in favor of the rapist (the part about how he had so much to lose). California seems more enlightened than the area of the country in which I live - so that surprises me.
@katliamom I can’t imagine what the consequences would be if the guy was black.They would’ve probably made him serve the 10 years. Why would I be surprised :))
The sentence is way, way too short. And I mostly think that jail shouldn’t be such a default solution in our society. Serving only three months doesn’t make any sense.
I agree with you, Hanna. I am usually the first to criticize jail sentences. I believe that jail sentences (for the most part- there are exceptions) should be reserved for violent offenders. This is for the protection of potential victims.
Rape is about the most violent crime one can imagine. Not only is it a brutal, humiliating act in and of itself, but then you’re treated like a rag doll by various health professionals and suspicious by law enforcement officials. Your very humanity is often stripped bare and it’s about the only crime where blame on the victim is the default until s/he proves her/his “innocence.”
I can’t even put into words how infuriating and nauseating this sentence makes me. And yes, I can absolutely imagine what the survivor is going through- and it is hell.
There could also be considerable individual variation in the attitudes of probation officers, judges, etc., so that Turner got lucky in getting a probation officer and (more importantly) a sentencing judge who had a lenient attitude toward sexual assault, despite getting police and a prosecuting district attorney who took a harder line and a jury who returned convictions.
To clarify my above post (#49), I didn’t mean to make it sound like health professionals weren’t caring. It’s just that most hospitals lack SANE (or similarly trained) nurses and health professionals are (usually) doing the best they can to document evidence.
@notelling,
This sentence shows a complete lack of common sense and a complete lack of justice.
If this sentencing from this judge is not an outlier, I would look carefully before I ever supported the judge.
Sentences like this are part of the rape culture and need to be changed.
I agree with most who have posted that the victim is very eloquent and the sentencing is far too lenient in light of the harm done and total lack of remorse expressed. :-q
I hope the victim is able to get peace and healing. [-O<
I was curious about the judge in the case, Aaron Persky. This is archived from the 2002 election:
http://www.smartvoter.org/2002/03/05/ca/scl/vote/persky_a/bio.html
This information is provided by the candidate
Website: http://www.perskyforjudge.com
I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations and a Master’s Degree in International Policy Studies. After graduation, I rode my bicycle from Palo Alto to Washington, D.C. to raise money for the Red Cross African Famine Relief Campaign.
In Washington I worked for the International Trade Administration of the United States Department of Commerce, where I investigated other countries’ unfair trade practices. I returned to California to attend law school at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, where I was a member of the moot court board and also an assistant coach for the undergraduate men’s lacrosse team.
After law school, I worked for the judges of the Superior Court of San Francisco for one year, researching civil and criminal legal issues. I then joined the law firm of Morrison & Foerster as a litigation associate, gaining substantial experience in civil cases. The firm sent me to Tokyo, Japan to work for a Japanese client for one year. I studied Japanese and later won a prestigious speech contest for non-native Japanese speakers, which was nationally televised in Japan.
A year after returning from Japan, I became a criminal prosecutor for the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, where I now prosecute sex crimes and hate crimes. I focus on the prosecution of sexually violent predators, working to keep the most dangerous sex offenders in custody in mental hospitals. I am also an Executive Committee member of the Santa Clara County Network for a Hate-Free Community, where I helped create a county-wide law enforcement policy on hate crimes. In addition, I serve as an Executive Committee Member of the Support Network for Battered Women.
Also, if you Google “the robing room/california” you will see that people have been making comments about the sentence.
Sad story. indeed. I’m inclined to think the judge got it right. 6 months in jail, 3 years probation and a lifetime as a sex offender. Lifetime. What do you all think would have been correct – A year in jail, 5 years probation, lifetime sex offender, 5 years in jail, ten years probation, lifetime time sex offender? I’m not sure I know what I would do if I were that judge. I also don’t know the answer… So many lives ruined by stupid drunkeness whether it is in cars or on college campuses, etc. We just had a case last year in Michigan where two drunk drivers collided and one was killed but the one who lived was not charged with manslaughter. Here we have two young people one with a blood alcohol 2x the legal limit and one 3x the legal limit. What sentence do you think the judge should have imposed?
The more I think about it, looking at a drunk driving case where both drivers are drunk is probably an interesting thing to use as correlation for sentencing. Sexual assault conviction has the additional penalty of lifetime sex offender registry while drunk drivers have no lifetime circumstance hanging over their heads…but the sentencing outcomes would be interesting to take a look at it as we as a society attempt to come to grips with young people, alcohol and sex.
I completely disagree. In your analogy both drivers broke the law. This woman broke NO laws. The only one who broke the law was the man who threw her in the bushes behind a dumpster and viciously attacked her as she was unconscious. Then when two bystanders rode by, tried to run away. But, because he was drunk, he only gets 6 months because it would be hard on him? Really? Have you read her statement? Because if you have, you know how much she’s been suffering from this, and sadly that wasn’t taken into account in this lenient sentence.
In a drunk driving case where both drivers are drunk, both are driving. In this case where both students were drunk, one was unconscious and one was raping. So, in this case, your analogy doesn’t work at all for me. The woman was not participating in this encounter. It isn’t a question of he said, she said, or being too drunk to consent. She was unconscious. He was not so drunk he didn’t realize what he was doing was wrong. He ran away when confronted. He ran away and left her there on the ground, unconscious.
edit: cross posted
One thing I read somewhere, that the judge said about the sentence, is that the young man wasn’t a danger to society. I honestly don’t know how he can be so sure about that. Many find it inconceivable the Stanford student did this in the first place. Thinking he won’t do it again sort of assumes it was either an aberration or that he has learned his lesson. I just don’t know about that. Like some others I think we need to start focusing a whole lot more on the survivors and how we support them, rather than worrying about these young men messing up their lives through their own actions.
The only way I can see to help young men is education beforehand.
I don’t know all the gory details of this case, but I still like the analogy…people speed away from car accidents too…and are punished. This guy was punished, but the thread feels like people don’t think the punishment was great enough even with the mandatory lifetime sex offender registry, so I’m curious what an adequate punishment would be and I’m curious how drunk driving accidents where there is bodily injury or death are handled. Feels to me like there are similarities in that the incident (driving or sex) might not have occurred if one or both had NOT been drunk and it feels like a judge might take the circumstances into consideration in sentencing either a drunk driving charge or a sexual assault charge of two drunk adults. Is it a first offense or second or third, what were the circumstances at the time, what serves the community as a whole the best, what have other judges done under similar cases and so on. What happens when two drunk people collide?
Please read all the gory details.
I think probably for me an adequate punishment would be whatever, under sentencing guidelines, satisfied the rape survivor. That is my opinion after reading Missoula. (thanks again,dstark)
I read in some link that the rapist has proposed some sort of educational initiative in which he would speak to students about the dangers of alcohol (and I think perhaps the victim in her statement made a passing reference to following him to all the schools as he did it). Of course, the problem as I see it is not the alcohol use but his inherent urge to take advantage of a female incapable of consent, so it doesn’t pass the sniff test for me.
In fact, his “plan” really strikes me as something akin to the “packaging” or “branding” that many kids use to get into Stanford and other highly selective schools in the first place. It almost suggests to me that he is using a consultant for PR/future college application purposes.
Brock should really get to know Owen …