Brock Turner.
Remember him? Of course you do. None of us have had time to forget him.
He's being released from jail.
In January of last year, Turner was arrested an indicted for two counts of rape, two counts felony sexual assault, and one count attempted rape after sexually assaulting an unconscious woman outside a Stanford University frat house. The first two counts were withdrawn by the prosecution after DNA testing, and Turner was convicted of three counts felony sexual assault this past March. With those crimes, he faced a maximum 14 years in prison. The prosecution recommended a moderate sentence of six years. Instead, Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Turner to six months in county jail, saying that a long prison sentence would have a "severe impact" on him.
The light sentence sparked public outrage. Many called for Persky to be removed from the bench, starting an online petition that received over 1.2 million signatures. Still more people took to social media to proclaim the sentence as a glaring example of white, male and upper-class privilege. The fact that it took weeks to release a mugshot of Turner for the media to use, forcing reporters to use a high school year book photo of him and feeding into apologists' excuses that he was "a good kid" worsened the public's ire. Letters from Turner's parents pleading leniency, in one of which Turner's father called the sentence "a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action," infuriated people even further.
However, time went on. Most people came to accept Brock Turner's ludicrously lenient sentence and moved on. One good thing that did happen as a result of Turner's case. Yesterday, California lawmakers passed a bill requiring mandatory prison sentences for sexual assault of an unconscious victim. Judges would no longer be allowed the discretion to impose probation only. The only thing the law needs to pass is the signature of Governor Jerry Brown.
So...all's well that ends well? Kind of?
Wrong. As mentioned before, he is being released from jail THREE MONTHS early. Not only did he get an unfairly lenient sentence to begin with, he is being released early for good behavior.
Turner was in jail for three months. Most people would believe that that is not nearly enough time for punishment or rehabilitation.
