Stanford Rape Case: Brock Turner's Letter to Judge Revealed
A former Stanford University swimmer, recently convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman he encountered early last year, laments to the court how much his life has changed since the rape in a letter he penned prior to the verdict.
Brock Turner was sentenced to six months in county jail and three years' probation stemming from the January 2015 attack. He will also be required to register as a sex offender onc ehe is released.
"I've lost two jobs solely based on the reporting of my case," wrote Turner. "I wish I never was good at swimming or had the opportunity to attend Stanford, so maybe the newspapers wouldn't want to write stories about me."
Turner Blames Party Culture
The 20-year-old Turner goes on to at least partly blame Stanford's "party culture" for his fate, adding, "I've been shattered by the party culture and risk taking behavior that I briefly experienced in my four months at school."
His letter comes several days after the woman Turner attacked, only identified as Emily Doe, shared her letter to the court.
"You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice," she wrote, addressing Turner.
In directly addressing Turner, the woman added, "You cannot give me back the life I had before that night either. While you worry about your shattered reputation, I refrigerated spoons every night so when I woke up, any my eyes were puffy from crying, I would hold the spoons to my eyes to lessen the swelling so that I could see."
Judge in Case Facing Recall Effort
Meanwhile, the judge in the case has now also come under heavy criticism over the light sentence he imposed on Turner. Though Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky was reelected to the bench unopposed on June 7, Stanford law professor Michele Dauber vowed he won't serve out his new six-year term.
"His victory will be short-lived," she said. "I am 100 percent confident we will recall him. His decision hit every woman in the state of California in the gut."
Already, more than 300,000 people have signed a Change.org online petition calling for the judge's ouster. Dauber has also launched a recall website that collected more than $8,000 in donations for that very purpose in less than eight hours. She added a hand-written petition drive will soon commence committed to collecting 70,000 signatures needed to put Persky's recall on the ballot.
"His ruling was dangerous and wrongheaded," Dauber said. "We need to replace him with someone who understands violence against women."
Turner was found guilty in March and was only taken into custody after two graduate students on bicycles rode up as the assault was taking place and tackled him as he tried to run off.
During trial, Turner claimed that the victim consented to sex. He could have faced as much as a decade behind bars.
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