After a grueling year trial, a jury convicted Brock Turner guilty on three counts of sexual assault. Sentencing was set for early June. So a few days ago, Judge Aaron Persky went easy on the former swimmer, now sex offender, by giving six months of jail time with three years of probation.
It’s difficult not to get upset about this ruling, especially after reading the victim’s letter to the defendant, news sources and the defendant father’s letter. Turner’s father wrote A steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action. Action implies consent. Due to the victim’s intoxication and eventually being unconscious, there was no consent. But also, just because it was "20 minutes" does not diminish the seriousness of the crime and the affect the assault had on the victim. A murder or bank robbery can happen in less than one minute and still be devastating. And the addition of a trial to seek justice for the victim, in this case, took a year. By reliving the assault over and over, the victim was unable to heal, a common occurrence with anyone who experiences a traumatic event.
News sources, in this case, the Washington Post, but also an unnamed news source that the victim came across early in the process, are a huge problem in the characterization of defendants. In the unnamed news source the victim describes reading about her sexual assault, “And then, at the bottom of the article, after I learned about the graphic details of my own sexual assault, the article listed his swimming times.” Washington Post’s article headline posted March 31, following the unanimous guilty ruling by the jury, started with “All-American swimmer…” In between details of the assault, the article continues to delve into how promising Turner’s life was before the trial. How he could’ve been an Olympian, how he was such a good swimmer that he turned down numerous colleges for Stanford and then, “Suddenly he was accused of rape.” The article also issues this troubling sentence, “During the trial, they argued that despite his squeaky clean image and exalted status as a Stanford athlete, Turner deserved no special treatment.” The writer’s clear bias is just one example of how sexual assault is still accepted in this country, instead of the condemning the man found guilty of sexual assault.
The victim’s letter outlined her experience. It’s hard to try and summarize her words and retain their enormous power, so please read her statement in the official report or on Buzzfeed.
Her major problems with the trial were Turner’s resistance to admit that that he was guilty for sexual assault and the defense lawyer’s questioning. Turner maintained that it was drinking that was the problem. While drinking may have loosened his inhibitions, the vast majority of people on college campuses that drink do not also sexually assault friends or strangers.
Turner’s lawyer asked questions about the victim’s weight, where she urinated, was she sexually active with her boyfriend, and other questions meant to discredit her experience. And because she was blackout drunk and unconscious at a certain point, Brock’s testimony was the only side of the story. However, the testimonies of the two Swedish graduates provide some answers that Turner and Turner’s lawyer could not fully dismiss. And thankfully, as society’s opinions of sexual assaults are changing, the jury ruled guilty. The area where people are contesting the court system is in the six months of jail time. So much so, that there is a petition for Judge Aaron Persky to be removed/to get another judge to run against him in the upcoming election.
Now, I feel conflicted because the prison system is corrupt. And I am an advocate for more rehabilitation in prisons, otherwise, 77 percent are arrested for a new crime within five years. However, by letting every college athlete with a promising future off with a light sentence, society and the court systems are sending a message that sexual assault is not a serious crime.
Brock Turner should be held fully accountable for his actions. A longer jail time would have a "severe impact" on him, as it should. After all, his actions had a very severe impact on the victim and his sentencing has a very severe impact on the attitude of sexual assault.
