Turner was a male student attending Stanford University. On January
28, 2016 he was indicted on five charges to include: rape, felony assault and
attempted rape. The incident occurred on the campus in early 2015. Two passing
males spotted Brock Turner on top of an unconscious female. Upon realizing he
was recognized, Turner proceeded to flee the scene. In the hours before, Brock
Turner and the victim were attending a party together where both admittedly
consumed alcohol. I won’t scrutinize every single detail between the party and
the accused rape, but I highly recommend you read up on it. I won’t give my
opinion of guilt or innocence in this case. I wasn’t there and it’s not my position to judge
the accused. What I will offer is the fact that on March 30, 2016, Brock Turner
was found guilty by a jury of the following charges: assault with intent to
commit rape on an intoxicated/unconscious person, penetration of an intoxicated
person with a foreign object, and sexually penetrating an unconscious person
with a foreign object. The controversy though is not in what he was found guilty
of, but with the sentence Judge Aaron Persky gave Turner: 6 months in jail with
3 years probation.
The public was outraged by the sentence Judge Persky handed
down; accusing him of being lenient because of Brock Turner’s race and social status.
Numerous cases have surfaced in the media to shed light on the partial
treatment Turner was given, including: Brian Keith Banks and more recently,
Raul Ramirez. With the public’s perceived injustice, many protests and petitions
have been enacted in an attempt to remove Judge Aaron Persky from his judicial
position. While the fury and effort is understandable, California law has
blurred lines on what constitutes rape, defining it as a” non-consensual act of
sexual intercourse.” The law is not specific in addressing penetration and what
is classified as sexual intercourse. Simply
put, under California law penetration with any type of foreign object including
fingers is not classified into the category of “intercourse”, therefore it is
not rape. So, yes under the law, Brock
Turner’s sentence is justified, and Judge Persky was within the law’s definition
regarding his sentencing. Fortunately, efforts
are currently underway to mend these discrepancies. But unfortunately, these
details were not outlined under the law when Judge Persky sentenced Brock
Turner. Although I do not support Persky’s decision, I cannot condemn him for
straying from what the law defines as just.
Hello! I wrote a commentary response to your post and below is the link to it.
ReplyDeletehttp://thetexaspolitics.blogspot.com/2016/07/commentary-on-opinion-or-law.html
Hi! Here is my comment to your post: http://onevoteonevoice.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteIn one of my colleague’s blogs titled America In-Formation, the author posted an original editorial about the court case People of the State of California v. Brock Turner. Her main argument is that the sentence for Turner of 6 months in jail with 3 years of probation was just because of the California law. The author states that although what Turner did was entirely wrong and unjust, the sentence Judge Aaron Persky gave Turner wasn’t.
ReplyDeleteTurner was a 20 year old male student attending Stanford University. The author states that on January 28, 2016 Turner “was indicted on five charges to include: rape, felony assault and attempted rape.” Two Stanford international students from Sweden testified that they intervened because during the night of assault, they found turner with the unconscious woman. Turner fled the scene once the two students saw him but they chased Turner down and waited until the police arrived on Stanford’s campus. Once he was arrested, Turner was released the same day after posting $150,000 bail.
Because Turner’s sentence was only 6 months in jail, the public was outraged. The author provides examples of the public being outraged by mentioning the “Numerous cases [that have] surfaced in the media to shed light on the partial treatment Turner was given, including: Brian Keith Banks and more recently, Raul Ramirez.” The author also explains that the public also had “many protests and petitions have been enacted in attempt to remove Judge Aaron Persky from his justice position” due to his unjust sentencing for Turner. By explaining that the public was putting the blame on Turner and the judge, the author brings up her main point of the California law. This law has “blurred lines on what constitutes rape”, defining it as a” non-consensual act of sexual intercourse.” The law is not specific and doesn’t classify fingers or foreign objects into the category of “intercourse”. Considering this, the actions of Turner were not judged as rape.
The author then brings up the point that although Turner committed a wrongful act in the eyes of a human being, the law protects this man. The author’s editorial was successful because she provided many examples of why the case was a hot topic on the media and how the public was reacting. She solidified her argument by bringing her main point of why the case sentence was just under the California law. Before I read the authors post, I had no idea about the California law and it changed my perspective of who to point fingers at in the People v. Turner case. Although I would have liked her to go in depth about changing the law and making a difference, her argument was to the point and clear.