Remember Brock Turner? Best known as the Stanford rapist. For those of you who do not know who this man is, or for those of you who have forgotten, in January 2015, a man by the name of Brock Turner raped an unconscious woman after both had attended a fraternity party at Stanford University. Two unnamed people were passing by as they witnessed the event happening, and they saved this woman from any further harm.
In June 2016, Brock Turner was on trial to find out his sentence for his crime, and was given a 6-month sentence to be served in the Santa Clara County Jail. There is no set sentence for people who are charged on a rape crime, but studies show that the average sentence is typically about 9.8 years with only about 5.4 years being served. But this was not the case for Turner. Judge Aaron Persky found that Turner deserved to live a “normal college experience” so he decided that the sentence would only be six months.
Three, short months later, Turner has been released from the county jail with his already short sentence being cut in half. The 21-year-old man must register as a sex offender for life and is facing three years of supervised probation. Although these things are still considered a punishment, the nation is in disbelief that this is the sentence that he has carried out.
When walking out of the prison on the morning of Friday, August 26th at around 6 a.m., he received a backlash of hate towards him. County Sheriff Laurie Smith gave a statement saying that he was held in “protective custody” but there were no legitimate threats where they would need to step in and take action.
In Ohio, prison officials have agreed to take the case and take care of Turner’s probation. He is to avoid alcohol and drugs for the period of time that he is on probation and his neighbors will be informed of the fact that he is a listed sex offender. He has been told that he is required to live with his parents throughout this period of time, and is to report to the sheriff’s office that he is still living under the roof of his parents.
The Brock Turner case has led the state of California to pass a stricter sexual assault law and they are looking to recall the judge for this too lenient sentence. But even with all this being done with his probation, some people still feel as though this is not enough. The next step is seeing whether or not Turner can uphold his responsibilities as a now listed sex offender.
