On September 2, 2016 a sexual predator walked out of Santa Clara County jail in California a free man after serving only three months of his six month sentence.
For those who are not following Brock Allen Turner's case, here's a little overview of what happened...
January 17/18, 2015: Brock Turner, a 19-year-old Stanford student, was caught by two Swedish graduate students - Carl-Fredrik Arndt and Peter Jonsson - behind a dumpster sexually assaulting a 22-year-old unconscious woman. He claims he does not remember how the two ended up there, but attempted to run away once he saw the two students. They chased him down and held him until the authority's came, while the woman remained unresponsive. She was taken to a nearby hospital and regained consciousness there. The police report says that Turner was able to remember everything and that he consciously decided to engage in this activity.
January 27, 2015: Turner was arrested and charged with five counts of felony sexual assault. He then hired a defense team and pursued a trial.
February of 2015: Turner was arraigned at the Santa Clara County courthouse and pleaded not guilty to all five charges - rape of an intoxicated person, rape of an unconscious person, sexual penetration by a foreign object of an unconscious woman, sexual penetration by a foreign object of an intoxicated woman and assault with intent to commit rape. He was released on a $150,000 bail.
October of 2015: He again pleaded guilty to all five charges and two were dropped, rape of an unconscious person and rape of an intoxicated person. He would stand trial for the other three charges.
March of 2016: Turner is found guilty and convicted of three charges of felony sexual assault. He could face up to 14 years in prison and would then have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
June 2, 2016: Judge Aaron Persky, a Stanford graduate and former student athlete himself, sentenced Turner to six months in Santa Clara County jail with three years' probation, even though he was asked by prosecutors for a six-year sentence.
September 2, 2016: Brock Turner is once again a free man.
The link below will take you to Turner's statement, in which he blames his actions on drinking too much alcohol as well as the "party culture" in the United States. He does not once even say the words "sexual assault." It can be read here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/07/br...
At his sentencing, the victim read a heart-wrenching, extremely powerful statement to him that later went viral, which can (and should) be read here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-the-po...
Nobody, not a single human being, should ever feel the way that she felt or continues to feel every single day. She feels worthless, scared, tired, and unhappy all the time. How, after reading that statement and knowing all of the facts of that night, could anyone justify the actions of Brock Turner?
Because there is nothing that can be done about Turner anymore now that he is free and out of custody of the police, the public has decided to focus their attention on Judge Aaron Persky and removing him from his judicial position due to his lenient sentencing. The most frustrating part? His reasoning; he thought that a longer sentence would have a "severe impact" on Brock Turner. But is that not exactly what you want?
Do we not want people who sexually assault other unconscious people to be punished and receive severe impact so that they will not do that again? Or even so that we make an example out of them for others and maybe - hopefully - prevent others from doing the same thing?
As if all of this is not aggravating enough, Dan Turner, Brock's father, wrote a letter to Judge Persky, asking for his son to only receive probation, no jail time whatsoever. That letter can be read here: http://heavy.com/news/2016/06/brock-turner-father-...
In it he says that "this is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action" and continues to talk about all of his sons achievements and hard work prior to the events in January of 2015. But Dan Turner, have you ever thought of this: that poor woman worked hard too. Although she was not a swimmer with Olympic sized dreams, she went to college and now has a job that she works hard at, but her sense of safety and security has been taken away from her because of your son. I think that is a much bigger price to pay, even though she did nothing wrong, than your son had to pay. Your son should still be rotting away in jail right now, but due to lack of good judgement, he is a free man. He will be able to go to sleep at night without leaving a light on, while she feels that she can't even do that much.
Many, many things are wrong with this entire trial and it would take me too long to name all of them; however, some of the more notable aspects are as follows.
1. We cannot technically call Brock Turner a rapist. The definition of rape varies from state to state, but California's - like many other state's definitions - says that rape is "an act of sexual intercourse" under circumstances in which the victim is unconscious or incapable of giving consent, among other things. Since Turner did not penetrate her with his penis, legally, no "rape" ever actually occurred. The FBI, however (as of 2013), defines rape as "penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim." If states used this definition, Turner would be without a doubt, a rapist. Unfortunately, state laws have yet to catch up and define rape as what it truly is.
2. Despite not being able to call him a rapist, headlines are still calling him the Stanford swimmer, instead of the Stanford sexual assaulter. And his swimming times continue to be brought up. Why does that matter? All that matters is that he sexually assaulted an unconscious female. Anything before the night of January 17, 2015 does not matter in dealing with his case.
3. The fact that Brock will not own to his actions and continues to blame them on the consumption of alcohol, instead of his own horrible judgement - which the victim talks a lot about in her statement.
4. The way that this trial will effect many other trials and thought processes in the future. Fortunately, over one million people have signed a petition to get Judge Aaron Persky out of office, which means that the people who are paying attention are outraged - at least some. Persky failed to show that a sexual assault case is a sexual assault case no matter your race, gender, social/economic class, etc.
* If you want to sign the petition to get him out of office, it can be found here: https://www.change.org/p/california-state-house-im...
My only hope after this mess of a case, is that people will learn from it. It has already shed so much light on what is wrong with our legal system and I hope it continues to do more good than harm, inspire others to make a change, and encourage people to look after one another. The damage that Brock Turner has done to his victim is irreversible, terrible, and sickening, but that doesn't mean that we can't make an example out of him, even if a judge refused to do so. We, as a society and country, need to ban together to end sexual assault and this is exactly how it begins.
