The case of 20-year-old Stanford swimmer Brock Turner being convicted of sexual assault has created an uproar in the media in the recent month. One night in January of last year, two Stanford alumni students biking across campus spotted Brock Turner thrusting his body on top of an unconscious, half-naked woman behind a dumpster. Witnesses said that he tried to flee but they tackled and pinned him down until the police arrived. This March, a California jury found the former student guilty of three counts of sexual assault. Turner faced a maximum of 14 years in state prison.
The first thing that people are outraged about is that he was convicted of "sexual assault". I'm pretty sure that rape involves sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration perpetrated against a person without that person's consent. Considering the fact that the woman was unconscious qualifies as "without consent", so for it to not be referred as rape is very appalling.
Aside from the classification of his terrible actions, he was also only sentenced to six months in county jail as well as probation. There is even a possibility that he may only serve three months of that term if he keeps a clean disciplinary record while in jail. Three months for a rape conviction??? The average sentencing for a rape/sexual assault case is 6-9 years in prison but the judge cited Turner's clean criminal record and went on to say that he feared that a longer sentence would have a “severe impact” on Turner. Even his father stated that he should not have to go to jail for "20 minutes of action." The term triggered criticism that a star athlete from a privileged background had gotten special treatment.
He has even received surprising support from others such as Kelly Owens , a guidance counselor at the high school where Turner attended. She told the court that he was "absolutely undeserving of the outcome" because there were "positive contributions he can make to his community if given a chance to reclaim his life." Although this may be true, seeing as how many people have been known to turn their lives around after serving time in prison, however, that is not a free pass away from getting the justice that needs to be served.
In all of this, it seems as though they are making him out to be the victim. What about the woman's life who will forever be changed because of what he has done? I can't seem to wrap my mind around the fact that the judge seemed to think more about the impact of jail on Turner's life rather than woman's life who'm he has violated. The victim tragically had to find out about the horrible and graphic details of her incident from a newspaper article, and ironically in that same article it listed Turner's remarkable swimming times. In a letter that she wrote to the defendant, she stated "throw in my mile time if that’s what we’re doing. I’m good at cooking, put that in there, I think the end is where you list your extracurriculars to cancel out all the sickening things that’ve happened." It's saddening just to see how this case has been approached from many different ways. The media didn't even release his actual mug shot. Until recently, they were showing his school yearbook photo, which was of him smiling while being clean cut and wearing a suit.
In no way should anyone have supported the sentencing that was given to this case. Many would say if Brock Turner was a man of color, the outcome would have been much different with no questions asked and I believe the same. It is cases like this, that makes people question our justice system. Turner is currently serving his sentence and the woman he violated is in a way serving a longer sentence. Once Turner is release he may go on about his business and move on with his life. This woman, however, must live with this embedded in her mind for the rest of her life. I hope that this case really opens our eyes to see how flawed our justice system is, so that we my work to one day solve wrongful sentences such as this.
