Teaching kids that one drink is “intoxicated” enough to render a person incapable of consent is ridiculous and counterproductive, and does nothing to reduce true crime. Instead, it just gives real rapists like Turner a justification, since after all “everyone” is having sex while their partner is “intoxicated.” It dilutes the seriousness of the crime. At the schools where one drink equals intoxication, and sex with an intoxicated person equals sexual assault, saying that someone at that school committed sexual assault becomes meaningless.
It is pretty simple to understand and teach that Brock Turner is a criminal. The guy having sex with his girlfriend after she’s had a beer with her pizza is not.
Having sex after a drink perfectly normal behavior. Trying to criminalize normal, healthy behavior is a waste of resources that are desperately needed elsewhere.
@LionsMum wondering if you have any idea how the California sex registry laws might affect Turner once he is beyond their jurisdiction and presumably living in Ohio. The laws are so entirely different in each state. My thought is that if he is living in Ohio, he will be governed by the laws in that jurisdiction. Ohio’s requirements are very different than California’s.
@momofthreeboys Whether you hold drunk people to the same standard is not the issue (and FWIW, I do have alcoholic friends and family members). The issue is what the law should do. Are you saying that everyone who has committed a crime while drunk or high is less legally culpable than someone who committed a crime while sober? I hope you’ve thought this through – there are serial killers who have committed all their murders high, ditto armed robbers, and stranger rapists. And there are serial killers who have family members who say “he was a totally different person around me!”
Because I think they should have one opportunity to deal with it. Decades ago I had a direct report who clearly had a drinking problem. I didn’t fire him, but gave him a one-time limited opportunity to deal with it.
@HarvestMoon1 People on the CA registry are required to register w/ a new jurisdiction whenever they move, including to a new state. Also, they are required to notify the last registering agency in CA whenever they move. Generally under full faith and credit provisions, state recognize convictions/judgments, etc, from other states. If he’s on the CA sex registry for life, it doesn’t matter if Ohio wouldn’t have put him on that registry. He’s still on the CA registry and it would show his Ohio address.
Well, I think part of the problem is that it’s really not a good idea to get drunk to the point that your defenses are down and you might consent to do things you wouldn’t have normally done, and it’s really not a good idea to engage in sexual activity with someone you’ve just met / you are not in some kind of relationship with. I’m not talking about morality. I’m just talking about safety.
But this is viewed by some as “slut-shaming” or “suggesting that women need to hide their sexuality.”
I’m a bit confused as to how this plays out. Let’s say a sober driver hits my car and causes $X worth of damage. He’s liable for fixing that damage. Are you suggesting that if a drunk driver hits my car, he’s not responsible for it?
Just read the police report. Great… someone took a photo of her just before the police arrived. One of the non-Swede good samaritans saw it happen but then the guy left.
I also hadn’t realized that Brock had been aggressively kissing the victim’s sister until she fended him off. Considering it was in the police report and must have been mentioned at the trial, the judge’s mental block about Turner’s predatory behavior is even more mind boggling.
I have some friends and a relative who are alcoholics.
The thought “they are a completely different person when they are sober” IME tends to say more about the level of denial and/or the lack of full deep knowledge of the alcoholic’s history which could only be gained from long-term observation on a near daily basis, honest no-holds barred frank observations of relatives/friends in a position to make such long-term observations who are not in denial about the alcoholic concerned, or the frank admission of the alcoholic once he/she hits rock bottom and finally takes full responsibility/ownership of his/her alcoholism and underlying psychological/personality issues such as one friend’s explosive temper from long-standing latent anger issues which started in adolescence.
And with very few exceptions, most of the time…bad/criminal behaviors of someone drunk is more a revelation of the individual’s “true self”/issues. Only difference is the effects of inebriation has reduced the inhibitions normally used to maintain an appearance of respectability to the world at large.
Assigning alcohol the power to “magically change personalities” also has very dangerous implications as such arguments could easily be used by those who were caught behaving badly/criminally and their families/friends to effectively deny any responsibility and fight any attempts to hold them socially and/or legally accountable.
In short, this argument/line of thinking could be encapsulated in this statement: “But…but…it’s not my fault. The damn alcohol made me do it!!!” And it seems this convict and his family and friends are using the same line of thinking to defend him.
@palm715 I have entirely different feelings about abuse of minors…and so do states, the laws are much, much harsher in almost every state for criminal sexual behavior with a minor…way harsher. They can lock up child abusers for a long, long time in my opinion. Most men I know feel the same way as we have a case in our district right now around this issue so it gets discussed socially with my crowd. And really that is not what this thread is about on any level. This is about whether this particular kid should have punished with longer jail time.
Perhaps Cobra. They do say alcoholism…and alcoholics can be binge drinkers who seem totally OK Tuesday - Thursday…is a disease. But I would have a hard time not giving someone a second chance…and that is just a general statement about my personality and it would include the mundane…like a bad performer at work to someone who has never been in trouble with the law, not even an MIP, and is facing a judge. I guess, and I’m scratching my head, if bad behavior is some seed in a person that only comes out when they are drunk…and they don’t get drunk and the seed never comes out again then I can’t see condemning that person for life. It’s almost a moral issue for me. A friend of mine married a guy that is the most compassionate person I’ve ever met. I was disturbed to learn shortly after their engagement that his previous relationship was abusive and I heard it from more than one person. I was tortured whether or not to say anything to my friend…and I did ultimately. They have been married for almost 30 years and it’s been a great marriage and he’s a great father and still the compassionate person he was at 30, so clearly that guy had some bad seed somewhere that took root with that particular women, but I just don’t see that the ultimate conclusion is always transparent.
It doesn’t really matter one way or the other if alcohol “uncovers the true self” (e.g., uncovers the monster lying underneath) or “creates a different self” (e.g., transforms Jekyll into Hyde). You’re still responsible for what you do under the influence of it.
I just don’t get this line of thinking. Plenty of people drink and don’t get drunk. They know their limit, they observe it, they have a plan, however you want to put that ability to know when enough is enough. So we know that is an option.
People who CHOOSE to drink to excess, to the point of stupid judgement – that’s a choice, imho. A choice. It’s not insanity, or mental illness, or …whatever. It’s a choice. Often it’s a conscious choice “Hey, let’s go get plastered”. I thought that was the whole point of alcohol education – you will not be able to make good decisions about alcohol once alcohol has influenced your judgement, so decide what your personal parameters are. You decide. “It’s not like him” well, yes, apparently it IS. Because the other drinking guys weren’t all drunk, and the other drunk guys were not out in the alley raping unconscious women.
“Just read the police report. Great… someone took a photo of her just before the police arrived. One of the non-Swede good samaritans saw it happen but then the guy left”
That’s not the way I read it. I think the guy with the phone was the one who called calling 911. I think he left becuase he was drunk.
But do we really think that being drunk has no impact on the criminal responsibility for acts performed while drunk? If we do, then why aren’t drunk drivers charged with first-degree murder when they kill somebody? After all, drinking was an intentional act. In fact, we generally do think that drunk people have impaired judgment, and that impacts how we think about the culpability of what they do. I would also note that drunk drivers who are caught before they kill anybody are typically given very mild sentences, and end up re-offending. Why is that?
On another point, I was thinking what I would do if somebody I knew was convicted of a crime like this, and I was asked by the defense to write a character reference to the judge for the purpose of sentencing. Assume that this is somebody I knew for years (i.e., when the kid was in high school), and that I had never observed anything negative about the kid; rather, he had always seemed to me to be a good kid. Let’s also assume that I was shocked that he was accused of this crime, and had trouble believing that he could have done it. What would I write in my letter? I think I’d have to tell the truth, and say that in my experience he had always shown good moral character. Would that make me a victim-blamer?
Actually, it is more about whether the unusually short sentence (compared to the sentences specified in the California Penal Code for his crimes) is appropriate for the situation. Most people on this thread do not agree that being drunk is an excuse that calls for an unusually short sentence than the normal ones specified for his crimes, nor that there are any other mitigating situations that call for leniency in this case.