http://www.refinery29.com/2016/06/113155/stanford-rape-judge-petition-recall-laws
“I don’t see the “degree” of the rapist’s planning/intent as having anything to do with the punishment to be given, but I might consider it to have an impact on whether the perpetrator has the ability to be rehabilitated, post-punishment.”
Suppose we had an identical case, but the rapist had targeted a particular girl at the start of the party, and actively caused her drink to be spiked / roofied. Don’t we think we’d be harsher on this guy than we would on Brock? I’m not excusing Brock in any way, just making a comment that this hypothetical seems, at least to me, worse in some way.
@pizzagirl, personally, I don’t see that the drunk rapist should get off any lighter than the deliberate roofie rapist. Society has an interest in seeing that both get punished very harshly not only because of the identical harm to the victim in either case, but also because a strong message needs to be sent to future drunkards/“roofiers” in both cases.
I could support an argument that the post-punishment phase could be handled differently for these two cases (i.e., lighter parole and finite sex registry for the drunkard, longer parole and permanent registry for the roofie guy).
From the above link…
The judge sentenced Brock to less than the minimum under California statutes.
Re: http://www.refinery29.com/2016/06/113155/stanford-rape-judge-petition-recall-laws
Precedent already set, for better or worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Bird
The thing is that people don’t accidentally rape others. In a car, especially at fast speeds, one swerve can cause a crash in a second or less. Someone’s mind and judgement may be impaired by alcohol, but removing clothes from oneself and another person and performing sexual acts involves a bit more motor power than just a twitch of an arm or closing one’s eyes. That’s (to me) why the two instances aren’t comparable. What is it that tells a man to rape a woman under the influence when he wouldn’t sober? I don’t know. Just some musings…
Also, like his dad said - 20 minutes of action. In that amount of time, if he really wasn’t a rapist, shouldn’t he have stopped? 20 minutes isn’t that short when it’s just 2 people - and one of them is unconscious.
"personally, I don’t see that the drunk rapist should get off any lighter than the deliberate roofie rapist. "
I hear you, but in point of fact, if I understand this correctly, the drunk driver who hits someone gets involuntary manslaughter whereas the deliberate plotting murderer gets first or second degree murder charges.
And I on the other hand think that people who intend to commit a crime and plan for it are more evil than someone who does something in the heat of the moment. Look at women that kill their husbands and the scrutiny that is put in place about the circumstances that led to someone doing that. I think any assaultive crime that is not premeditated and that has the potential for a long prison term, which most assaultive crimes have that potential, deserves that level of scrutiny regarding all the participants. I can live with that.
After reading all 44 pages the fact that raping someone is being compared to a car accident DUI or not is crazy to me. I’m not shock or outrage by the 6 months. The outcome is about what I expected it to be. I honestly thought he was just going to get off. So the guilty verdict is more of a shock.
No one is COMPARING raping someone to a car accident / DUI. We are using the penalties for car accidents / DUI to illustrate analogous situations.
@pizzagirl, yes but I think @albert69 put it well. I can see degrees for homicide due to the accidental nature it can sometimes present and due to the fact that it would be harder to manufacturer a defense just to get a lesser sentence.
The advance planning sober rapist could plot his crime and then drink a lot of alcohol so that he could later claim he only did it because he was drunk.
It’s harder to imagine someone planning to kill someone and then drinking and driving just to claim he accidentally killed his target.
Law is a crazy thing…
People’s interpretation of the law is what’s crazy to me.
If I had a daughter I don’t think I would sue. The problem with suing is that most likely her name will end up out there on the internet. Right now it’s not. I would want her to get as much counseling/help as she needs but I would not want her to have to worry about someone googling her 10 years from now and finding out she was a victim. While you would think that most people would ignore it , there are people out there that would probably be dumb enough to ask about it even years later…
OK, I’ll take the bait. I do think there’s a difference between the “drunk rapist” and the “roofie rapist”. They’re both rapists, but - everything else being equal - the roofie rapist is worse. I’d still find them both guilty of rape, but I’d punish the roofie rapist more harshly than the drunk rapist. I think it’s entirely reasonable to consider aggravating and mitigating factors when deciding on a punishment. Just like the differences that @Pizzagirl was highlighting with her examples of the different types of murder charges.
The problem with this case is that the judge / probation board decided on a 6 month sentence. This seems outrageously low, and frankly a slap in the face to the victim and (just as importantly) to society.
If instead the judge had said “the range of penalties for rape is 3 years to 9 years; this kid committed a crime but it’s a first offense, he was drunk, and I think he’s remorseful and can be rehabilitated, I’ll sentence him to 3 years with possibility of parole after 1 1/2 years”, then I personally wouldn’t be that outraged. I’d probably think the judge heard all the evidence (including information we don’t have) and made a reasoned decision based on his experience.
But the 6 month sentence with possible parole after 3 months is indefensible based on everything we’ve read.
For that matter, I find the whole notion of writing letters to determine sentencing to be quite absurd. Who cares that the rapist could find a few childhood friends to write that they thought he was “of good moral character”? Almost anyone can find a few dozen people to write letters begging for leniency and detailing an anecdote of how someone was kind to old women and puppies. Personally, I’d like to think I could find a few hundred people to write stories about what a generous and kind person I am. Who gives a crap. It’s not like someone wrote “you should be lenient. This guy jumped on a grenade when our unit was stationed in 'Nam in '69”. That might influence me. Otherwise, if I were a judge I’d just ignore all these letters since they tell me absolutely nothing other than that he seemed to be a regular guy before raping an unconscious woman.
To take the point further, I’d probably just ignore the victim’s statement too. Don’t get me wrong. I think her letter was one of the most heartbreakingly eloquent things I read. But just because she’s a good writer doesn’t mean I should punish this guy more than other rapists.
I guess that’s why I’m not a judge. I’m too stupid.
Well said @al2simon. Unfortunately, I think punishing the drunk rapist less harshly than the sober rapist just encourages all rapists to have a few drinks before they rape so they can try to avail themselves of the excuse.
If it was a premeditated, “roofie” rape there would have likely been an additional charge that would add additional time. Something like conspiracy to commit rape.
That’s abit of stretch…self roofie defense?
Nevermind.
With a roofie rapist, there is presumably evidence of the roofie so it’s easy to prove premeditation. What if it’s a premeditated rape without a roofie? The drinking vs sober excuse does not fly with me. We have no idea if Brock premeditated this rape. Maybe he really did think he’d like to try the experience of raping somebody one day, and this was the day. The drinking just gives these men an excuse. He raped an unconscious stranger, and there are witnesses. Don’t care if he was drunk, and I don’t see it as deserving a lesser punishment.