I don’t know if it so much taught as caught. One of the benefits of going through therapy is learning how much the ''do as I say and not as I do" doesn’t work. The parents, for example, who preach everyone is the same but who when they are aren’t people different than themselves stiffen up, or who claim to be color blind yet by body language and other things make it evident to the kid they don’t feel comfortable, teaches a lot. I don’t know this kid’s father, but from what he wrote, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he is one of the alpha male types who showed by the way he dealt with women, or talked about his past ‘exploits’ or something, and the kid picked up on it. The dad’s letter reeked of privilege and entitlement, as if what his kid did was some prank that got out of hand, rather than what it was, a disgusting, cowardly action that drunk or sober, so no more regards for that woman or any woman than a sex toy, pure and simple, and that doesn’t comes easily, that lack of empathy is learned. It is true that good parents can produce what we would call a bad seed, but even in people who otherwise are good people things can be picked up, attitudes and so forth that lead to that kind of thing. My parents had friends, really funny, warm people, who I literally would trust my life or my son’s to them, who had one son who ended up a mess, drugs, died very young…something was wrong there, I don’t know what, but I have suspicions that they were much better with other people than their own kids, which is not uncommon.
As far as the article @dstark posted, I am sure there are some men who see the circumstances of this case and are reminded of what they did, guys who basically committed some form of date rape as now defined, or weren’t sure, and are made uncomfortable by it, but like @DonnaL , I don’t buy that it represents most or many men. I know a lot of guys, from when I grew up, or even as adults, that are sickened by this, and I know more than a few guys, drunk or not, if they had been the ones who caught Turner, would likely rip his arm out of his socket or worse (the irony of our legal system being Turner got 6 months for the rape, of which he may serve 3, and they likely would get a lot more than that for kicking the crap out of the scumbag). It always amazes me when people go on about the rule of law, or about ‘vigilantism’ (as in the thread on here about the guy who beat to death someone who broke into his family’s apartment and attempted to rape the wife, because he did so after the guy left the apartment), yet does it surprise them when we have a legal system that we do, that often seems to get it wrong? I am old enough to remember the early 70’s, when movies like “Death Wish” and the “Dirty Harry” movies were popular, and a lot of that came from the view back then that courts cared a lot more about those committing crimes rather than the victims. If Juror don’t want to serve under this judge, it is much the same idea, why be part of a legal system that bases itself on the notion of being judged by your peers,then have the judge make a mockery of the severity of the charges? If the jury didn’t believe the defendant had acted wrong, they could have found him not guilty, or of lesser charges but they didn’t.
And deep underneath this I think almost everyone realizes why the judge did what he did, he saw a kid not unlike himself, star athlete, student at an elite school, and couldn’t bring it upon himself to 'ruin the life of someone so valuable, a stanford man, an athlete" over what of course must have been a ‘schoolboy mistake’, because of course no one from his background, who got into Stanford, who was an elite athlete, could ever do something like this because they are a vile person, must have been “one of those things” nod nod wink wink. That is the only conclusion I can draw, from someone who used to prosecute sex crimes as the judge did, that is the only thing I can see that would blind him to the harm he was doing by giving that kid basically 3 months in jail. I have a sister in law who was an ada working those kinds of cases, and the one thing she kept emphasizing was that they really felt they had a duty to the victims to get them justice, and for someone who was once a prosecutor, who saw that dark side, to turn around and basically ignore how ugly this really was, must have taken strong motivation, and I would bet pretty good money that he didn’t want to ‘destroy’ a ‘fine young man’ from his alma mater (raises questions, too, given the judge’s background, if he should have been recused from the case).
The judge might think he is upholding the rule of law by doing what he did, showing appropriate restraint when it came to sentencing the perp, not caving to ‘mob rule’, but what he did was undermine the rule of law, he ignored what the law, what precedent with the penalty for such a crime (in the articles I have read, from across the country, prosecutors and ex prosecutors all say the kid would do jail time, ranging typically from 2-6 years depending on the jurisdiction), and they pointed out that the minimum on the crimes he committed by statute is 2 years (but judges are given leeway to give less apparently), and they were shocked the judge did what he did. I honestly don’t think much will be done to Turner, either on appeal the verdict will be upheld, or if they order a new trial, it will end up the same way, he’ll do three months in the jail and that will be it (you can get a lot more than that in some places for a DUI, even on a first offense).