Stanford sexual assault: judge facing recall campaign over light sentence

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Stanford sexual assault: judge facing recall campaign over light sentence

Stanford law professor leads campaign against judge who gave
six-month sentence to the former swimmer who sexually assaulted
an unconscious woman

Sam Levin in San Francisco and Jo Walters in New York
Monday 6 June 2016 19.11 BST

The victim of a sexual assault by a former Stanford university swimmer said on Monday she was “overwhelmed and speechless” at the deluge of support for her as the judge who gave her attacker a light sentence faced a recall campaign.

Brock Allen Turner, 20, who was convicted sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on campus, was sentenced to six months in county jail and probation – a punishment that is significantly less severe than the minimum prison time of two years prescribed by state law for his felony offenses.

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The Guardian can also reveal that the judge who gave the former Stanford athlete the light sentence will now face a recall campaign led by a law professor at the elite university who argues the jurist took extraordinary measures to allow the student to avoid prison.

Further scrutiny on the judge’s remarks at sentencing appear to suggest he concluded the defendant had “less moral culpability” because he was drunk, and that a light sentence would be an “antidote” to the anxiety he had suffered from intense media attention on the case.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/06/stanford-sexual-assault-judge-recall

[CincyDem]

1. As it should be...ride him out of town on a rail. n/t

[uponit7771]

2. Amen!!

[KamaAina]

3. Our local cat box liner's top columnist has no problem with the sentence whatsoever

http://www.mercurynews.com/scott-herhold/ci_29966203/brock-turner-deserves-county-jail-not-state-prison

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky will have to perform a legal incantation Thursday if he follows a probation recommendation and sentences Brock Turner to county jail rather than state prison. Persky should do it. Turner doesn't belong in prison....

But probation officials, who see hundreds of less remorseful defendants, had it right. Turner should be given six months in county jail. He is not, as the prosecution has it, "a continued threat to the community."

Why do I say that? The probation people cite his lack of a criminal record and what they see as genuine remorse. His attorneys have argued that the ex-swimmer has a record of real accomplishment....

In the abstract, Kianerci is right. We should not give people breaks because they go to Stanford. But it is hard to judge this case apart from its context. And that context has messy elements that a summation of the charges misses.

[kimmylavin]

11. However...

It's nice to see that the comments are almost universally taking this guy to task...

[KamaAina]

12. Commenters at the Merc site making sense?!

[kimmylavin]

17. Well...

Commenters on any site making sense is always nice.

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

[Omaha Steve]

5. Thanks for posting

K&R!

OS

[Norman Conch Quest]

6. As He Should

Goddamn idiot!

[Humanist_Activist]

7. Ibdo wonder how many women this judge victimized in college....

He seemed unusually emphatic with the rapist.

[niyad]

31. one does wonder. and the judge is a stanford alum, and former captain of their lacrosse team.

[radicalliberal]

8. Oh, how I hope that judge is recalled.

He's scum. Just like the father of the rapist.

[avaistheone1]

9. Somehow I don't think it is this judge's first time issuing light-sentences.

I hope the recall drive succeeds.

[progree]

10. ‘20 minutes of action’: father defends Stanford student son convicted of sexual assault

The father of a former Stanford University athlete convicted on multiple charges of sexual assault has said his son should not have to go to prison for “20 minutes of action”.

... “He will never be his happy go lucky self with that easy going personality and welcoming smile,” he wrote of his son. “His every waking minute is consumed with worry, anxiety, fear, and depression. You can see this in his face, the way he walks, his weakened voice, his lack of appetite.”

More: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/06/father-stanford-university-student-brock-turner-sexual-assault-statement

"his lack of appetite". Sigh. Which appetite?

[gollygee]

13. Did he just call rape "20 minutes of action?"

[3catwoman3]

27. So it seems.

Truly appalling.

[Saviolo]

16. As I said in another, related thread

Don't teach your son not to drink, asshole, teach him not to rape!

[smirkymonkey]

23. The most sickening excuse I have ever read.

I think this father should join his son in prison.

[progree]

24. That's what I was thinking too.

[Lochloosa]

30. Fuck Him!

[Lizzie Poppet]

35. Someone did...that's the problem.

Too bad Dad wasn't shooting blanks.

[awoke_in_2003]

32. I wonder how this jackass would feel

If my sister, a rape victim when in college, pistol whipped him for 20 minutes. Should her 20 minutes of action outweigh the 45 years she has been a good citizen? I think his tune would change.

[aggiesal]

14. Another case of Affluenza n/t

[DebbieCDC]

15. The apple sure doesn't fall far from the tree

See what this piece of shit's daddy wrote in his "defense" to the light-hearted judge:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/%E2%80%98a-steep-price-to-pay-for-20-minutes-of-action-dad-defends-stanford-sex-offender/ar-BBtUZpE?li=BBnb7Kz

That fury intensified Sunday as critics slammed a letter written by Turner’s father as oblivious, “tone-deaf” and “impossibly offensive.”

“His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve,” Dan A. Turner wrote in a letter arguing that his son should receive probation, not jail time. “That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.”

“He will never be his happy go lucky self with that easy going personality and welcoming smile,” the letter says, noting that the former Olympic hopeful is now a registered sex offender.

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“His every waking minute is consumed with worry, anxiety, fear, and depression,” the father wrote. “You can see this in his face, the way he walks, his weakened voice, his lack of appetite. Brock always enjoyed certain types of food and is a very good cook himself. I was always excited to buy him a big ribeye steak to grill or to get his favorite steak for him. … Now he barely consumes any food and eats only to exist.”

[rurallib]

18. almost brings a tear to your eye, don't it?

How could that woman do such a thing to this wonderful boy?


for the humor impaired.

[progree]

19. "and welcoming smile" -- doesn't need that when the victim is unconcious. n/t

[shanti]

34. poor baby

has to go without his ribeyes.....

[Lizzie Poppet]

37. "Now he barely consumes any food and eats only to exist."

He's welcome to stop any time.

[smirkymonkey]

20. I hope this judge never works a day again in his miserable life.

He deserves to be disbarred and ejected from office. The sentence was an outrage.

[Greywing]

21. Makes you wonder how many other rape victims have

been re-victimized by the judicial system. I always try to find information out about judges before election time - should be much easier to find

[smirkymonkey]

22. Millions probably, and there are probably a million other victims who never

went to court because they knew how they would be treated by a judicial system that always believes the rapists story over the victims.

[Takket]

25. who elected the judge?

Was it a statewide election? A local election? Wondering how we can help get the word out to the electorate so we can get their signatures for the recall, but need to know who to target.

[elljay]

33. In California

Superior Court judges can be appointed by the Governor when there is a vacancy or elected in a county-wide election every 6 years. Persky was appointed by Gov. Gray Davis in 2003 and has run for election ever since. He is unopposed in today's election, which means that his name will not be on the ballot and he will be automatically re-elected in November.

[Akamai]

26. a couple of different thoughts on this issue--one of the reasons why we punish people is to stop

people from engaging in the same behavior. There's the old joke about the criminal who is being hung after stealing a horse. He says to the judge, "That's too severe--hanging me for stealing a horse." And the judge tells him, "It's not for you're stealing a horse, but it's so other people don't steal a horse." (Frankly, stealing a horse should not be a capital offense, but that's a different matter. Giving someone an incredibly light sanction after a horrendous act a certain license would allow others to think that that particular crime is unimportant.)

in his book, "Tribe", writer Sebastian Junger noted that one of the reasons why early Native American tribes were generally peaceful was that greed was controlled, and that if people were really greedy, they might in the long run be put to death.

But none of the Wall Street bankers are in jail, billionaires in the Supreme Court rig the political and economic system, and it is easy to see that this is one of the reasons why so many Americans are upset at the current system.

Thom Hartmann has been focusing on this issue over the last several weeks and has had Junger on his radio show and on his RT TV show.

go Bernie!

[dark forest]

28. And so he should

There is no excuse for rape, nor for treating it so frivolously

[niyad]

29. thank you. I read that there are over 86,000 signatures at change.org

I know what should happen to that judge. just wondering what sick skeletons are in his closet.

[Rex]

36. We as a society must have minimum standards. Nobody should be immune to these standards.

Not the 'all American' high school jock or judges that should know better.