Since the previous thread was closed, I’m starting a new thread about the impact of the Brock Turner rape trial. He is to be released from jail later this week.
This WaPo article describes some of the aftermath of his lenient sentencing – a new sexual assault sentencing law that was passed unanimously by the California legislature and Judge Aaron Persky has voluntarily been re-assigned to preside over civil trials.
I wonder how much long-term impact these developments will have on preventing sexual violence.
It seems unlikely that sexual predators will be thinking about the technical issues of the law with respect to whether they would be eligible for probation if convicted, or if they were convicted of “rape” versus “sexual penetration”.
When being interviewed by the Today show , one student equated the time Brock Turner spent in jail to a summer internship at Stanford. That’s a profound observation by a young man IMO.
To me that feels as if justice has become more about vengeance without considering the societal impact. I believe that evaluating the potential current harm to society as a whole, evaluating the potential of becoming a future contributing member of society and the minimum needed to deter, punish and rehabilitate IS the job of judges and they along with the support of the attorneys and probation departments have the best ability to make those decisions. The ACLU perspective is interesting because the implication is that pleas and charges could potentially be reduced to avoid the mandatory minimum.
Whoever said 3 months in jail and life time sex offender registry was the same as a summer internship is, forgive me for saying this…an idiot.
@momofthreeboys the student said the TIME he spent in jail was equivalent to a Stanford summer internship , that is an accurate statement . On second thought, maybe you’re right. What was he thinking ? People typically learn something on a summer internship. IMO Turner learned absolutely nothing while in jail.
Thanks for the clarification. I have no idea what Turner contemplated or learned while in jail…I personally suspect he had plenty to think about which is the of jail no? An adult version of the time-out concept with far longer lasting repercussions.
I think it will change things, both for the good and the bad. I am not a fan of minimum sentences, the Rockefeller drug laws in NY State were classic examples. They often end up putting away minor offenders for long terms, while major kingpins would get little to no jail time. Someone caught with a small amount of crack cocaine could get many years in jail while someone who had the same amount of cocaine powder would get a very light sentence.
The problem with min sentences is much like what triggers them, and that is legislators and judges have biases. The legislators who made crack a much more serious violation then powder cocaine often did so because crack was a drug of poor, mostly minority people, while cocaine was a drug of the well off, and crack was fueling major upticks in crime from users looking for their fix and the dealers who supplied them, while cocaine in a sense was ‘victimless’, since those using it mostly were well off. With judges, they can , rather than be fair, look at someone from their own race and class (which Persky seemed to me to have done with Turner) and be more lenient with them then let’s say someone who was not the same (and by the way, there are some judges who do things like give slap on the wrists out of protest of what they see as favoritism to some groups). I am no lawyer, but one of the reasons min sentences come up is that judges often appear to violate their discretion, and people feel powerless. I realize that it is better that judges not necessarily be beholden to ‘the will of the people’, because that passion can pressure judges into giving harsh sentences when the judge may think differently, it is why law enforcment can be tempted to railroad someone on a high profile case to ‘clear it’, but the other side of that is when judges use their discretion too often,if they abuse that power, then what do you do about that? You can’t impeach a judge for those kind of things…
@momofthreeboys:
How about sentences that reflect the deterrence factor, to prevent incidents like this from happening in the first place. One of the reasons we have this big hullaballoo about sexual assault in society is because for so many years, various people treated incidents like this the way the father described it, where the kid drank too much and made a mistake. You might argue that Brock Turner because of his background, because of his family, because of him being an athlete is not likely to be a threat to society down the line (and I don’t agree he should be on the sexual offender list forever, that list has been abused to the point of being cruel and unusual punishment, it was designed to weed out people like pedophiles and rapists who are shown to be predators, and was not meant to punish a 16 year old boy for having sex with a 15 year old girlfriend, a couple having sex in public and the like), it was not the "javert rule’ of once you commit something, you should be hounded…but still, what kind of message does this send and the question the judge should have been asking is how does this hurt the cause of preventing these? You are telling victims, who may be more than a bit timid for a number of reasons, including physical harm from the family and friends of the perp, or who is ashamed that they were in that situation, that being brave and coming forward wasn’t worth it, that in a sense the judge is telling them you should be ashamed… And what does it tell someone who is let’s say white, upper class, from a solid family, and so forth, that if they do something like this, they likely won’t face much punishment? Among other things, the sex offender registry is not truly lifetime, he likely will be able to cajole his way off it in a couple of years.
And yeah, there is the factor that this is now out there, that his name is all over thanks to the internet, and that is punishment…the only thing is, the same thing would apply to a kid who did something similar that got 10 years from a judge because the accused was a poor black or hispanic kid or a white kid from a bad family…not to mention that even those found innocent are out there, so that is not an argument against Turner being given a lenient sentence, that is something the accused faces no matter how severe the crime or whether they were acquitted or found guilty.
Deterance is only one piece of it. Rehabilitation and return to society is also a big piece. We jail more people in this country than many, many countries in the world. The ideal is to return someone as quickly as possible to society to hopefully be a productive law abiding citizen. I think judges and probation officers, more than anyone outside the system can make the best educated guess whether someone charged guilty will reoffend. Justice is NOT based on vengence. There may be flaws in the system, and there may be victims who don’t feel the guilty party did not get what they deserved, but the best people to weigh the future potential harm are those intimately engaged in the system day in and day out. Does anyone really believe that Brock turner is going to attempt to have sex with a passed out drunk woman again…I would put my money on the answer no. He has a lifetime sentence to keep that in mind.
Maybe not passed out. I’m not convinced that he will not reoffend. He hasn’t taken responsibility for what he’s done IMO until he does, he remains at risk to reoffend .
He has yet to admit that he sexually violated an unconscious woman . How do you know that he has? I think I clearly stated in my post it was my opinion.
How do you know that he hasn’t? Or what lessons he has learned in jail? He’s not obligated to apologize for your benefit or to show evidence of contrition for public exposure. If heaven forbid it were my kid, I’d want it all to fade away; I wouldn’t have him issue any kind of statement of apology or contrition and dredge it all up again in the media.
Though there is this part of me that wondered, did the family just agree not to watch Olympic swimming because it would be rough to think your son could have been there if he hadn’t made sure a horrible mistake. (And yes, I know it’s 1000x rougher for the victim, so don’t pretend I’m minimizing.)
I tend to think of it more as their son committed a felony rather than a terrible mistake , but I guess it’s all in how you look at it. And you’re right, I guess his family would want it to fade away. Should happen easily after only 3 months .
There are many kinds of felonies that are indeed “mistakes”…heat of the moment decisions, diving a car and getting distracted and killing someone is a great example…felonies, yes, but mistakes, too. The words aren’t mutually exclusive and I think that is something that judges, lawyers, and probation officers understand very well.
I tend to think of mistakes as “accidental” I don’t see Turner’s actions as accidental. I see his actions as volitional. He made a choice to rape an unconscious woman. I see that as more than a mistake. At what point does someone’s illegal actions stop being viewed as a “mistake” ? When they repeatedly offend? When they kill someone ? When they violate a child? I guess everyone has their interpretation of a mistake . Mine is just different than yours.