Recently, the nation was outraged with the unbelievably short sentence bestowed upon Brock Turner, a former Standford swimmer, for raping an unconscious young woman back in January, 2015.
Brock Turner was found guilty of rape in March. At the time he was apprehended, he was found by two graduate students who caught him on top of an unconscious, only partially clothed woman. Turner ran, but the students chased him down and he was arrested that night.
This past March, he was found guilty of rape and was charged with three felonies.
Despite the charges, the sentence was only 6 months in county jail with three years’ probation on top of completing a sex offender management program and registering as a convicted sex offender.
According to Sex Offender Attorney, the penalty for rape “can vary according to circumstances and evidence provided during the trial.” However, it continues to say, “Across the United States, the average prison time for rape is between 8 and 9 years…In fact, under certain circumstances a rape conviction may result in a life sentence.”
Brock Turner’s father, Dan Turner, feared that the current penalty for rape in the US might still be too harsh for his son. Before the sentence was delivered, Dan Turner made an effort to convince the judge to lighten his son’s sentence in a letter which stated, “His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.” The letter also focuses heavily on Brock Turner’s excellent academic and athletic achievements, even going so far as to try and make his son out to be the victim by saying that his son struggled to fit in at Stanford and that he, “fell into the culture of alcohol consumption and partying. This culture was modeled by many of the upperclassmen on the swim team and played a role in the event of Jan 17th and 18th 2015.”
The judge was apparently convinced by Dan Turner’s letter and decided to go with a much lighter than average sentence for Brock Turner. The reason for the light sentence, according to Judge Aaron Persky, was because of Turner’s age (20 years old), lack of criminal history and because, “A prison sentence would have severe impact on him…I think he will not be a danger to others.”
During his testimony, Turner failed to bring up anything about sexual assault. The prosecutor for this trial, Alaleh Kianerci, pointed out his failure to acknowledge the sexual assault took place. Even Dan Turner’s letter skirts around any mentioning of sexual misconduct or using the word “rape” in regards to his son’s “actions” that night in January.
While Brock Turner will only have to deal with a short punishment for his crime, his victim, who remains unnamed for her protection, will be punished and scarred by his actions forever. As she stated in her testimony, “You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today." And later added, "I am a human being who has been irreversibly hurt.”
And, apparently, the punishment for “irreversibly hurting” another human being is 6 months in county jail—less with good behavior.
