“It didn’t involve having a governor’s pardon. IIRC, basically it was not getting into any legal trouble for a certain number of year (10, I think) and some other steps that didn’t seem impossible.”
In California, your application then has to be approved by the governor’s office, which is going to be a heck of a challenge for a notorious defendant like this one. Turner’s Google problem won’t go away in ten years, even if some new competitor has replaced Google.
Will he be able to change his name? That would eliminate the Google problem.
I don’t know, but if he did, it might not eliminate the Google problem. The name-changing case is a public proceeding, and your old name doesn’t get erased.
I’m curious about the expungement rules under California law. Maybe a criminal lawyer could weigh in. (I’m a civil lawyer.) This is something I don’t understand at all, but many felonies seem to be expunged under CA law. I have no idea if sex crimes are subject to these rules. I also dont know how the sex registration requirements are affected by expungement, but that is something that concerns me. (I raised this upthread but got no response, so i’m asking again.)
You are not supposed to be able to change your name legally to escape the consequences of felony convictions.
The more I hear about this guy, the sicker I get. I can’t believe all those guys in the swim team and no one came forward. Smh
Jasmine- that was already posted upthread.-- # 919.
Someone should forward this link to his father. His son got off easy. I’m sure he is proud of his son’s accomplishments.
http://www.mapsofindia.com/my-india/society/how-rape-convicts-are-punished-in-india-and-other-countries
Someone upthread posted:
I have not seen any articles that say this. In fact, the only articles from lawyers that I’ve seen say just the opposite: that judges throw the book at rape defendants who are not white. So I’d appreciate links that substantiate this claim.
Right, you can’t change your name to escape the consequences but escaping the consequences can be a by product of changing your name. When you get married, either or both spouses can legally change their names. Anyone remember Princess Banana Hammock and Crap Bag?
Hypothetically, Turner could get married and change his name. The reason would be the marriage, not to escape consequences. The likelihood of people checking on name changes seems pretty small to me.
I wonder whether he would have gotten banned from USA Swimming, had the judge given him an appropriate jail sentence.
Posted in response to @“Cardinal Fang” 's request for substantiation. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the NY Times article.
Note that the deputy public defender in the NY Times article is a lawyer who has regularly appeared before this judge and is talking about his experience with this judge.
Also, the Public Defender of Santa Clara County is talking about her experience with this judge, and says the sentence is not out of line. She would know exactly what is happening across the county.
So that’s the substantiation for the support.
In addition, I haven’t seen anything by a single lawyer who has represented a person of color before this judge who thinks the judge exhibited bias toward his/her client.
If rapists get leniency for raping unconscious women, on the grounds that the rapist was drunk, we need to change the sentencing guidelines.
Changing the sentencing laws and rules to be more fair to all defendants and victims would be a worthy project.
I wish they would release the probation report so we could see the analysis of aggravating and mitigating factors.
Why would the judge take the rapist at his word when he knows the rapist lied?
Logically, that bugs me.
I want to see the probation report too but Brock lied.
The judge wanted to give the rapist a light sentence for some reason and he found a way to do that.
If the judge wanted to give the rapist a heavier sentence, the judge could have done that too.
I was involved in a legal case. The judge decided the case before we started. Against us. The judge has his views and that’s it.
Why do I say that? Because the judge pretty much said this. And a year and a half later, the judge made his first ruling in the case. Against us. 
A friend of mine is involved in a case right now. There was a ruling to be made and the judge told one of the attorneys, “I want to rule in your favor on this. Find me a case so I can do that”.
The judges have their biases.
A victim is a little fuzzy about what happened. This is understandable. Then she s told your story is inconsistent. We can’t do anything for you.
Then we have the rapist.
I didn’t have sex with her.
Well…a rape kit was done. We found your dna.
Oh yeah… We had sex. It was consensual.
Ok. That’s cool.
Of course judges have biases that affect their decisions like everyone else. Read John Rawls A Theory of Justice.
Judges who say, “I want to rule in your favor; find me a case” are signalling to the litigant that they haven’t adequately prepared the case. There are some lawyers who expect the judges to do the lawyer’s work.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I do know judges are biased.
What shocked me personally was how blatant the bias was.
Someone upthread mentioned that the Probation Office was responsible for preparing the report presented to the judge, and that as a part of the prison bureau it would have flagged this particular rapist as being needy of special handling (i.e., rape bait if put in the general population).
Perhaps we should be asking questions about the biases of the probation office’s writing of sentencing memos. Naturally they would have an interest in minimizing the amount of time to be served.