On Tuesday May 31 my letter to the editor of the Palo Alto Daily Post was published calling for a Stanford student convicted of rape to be sentenced to state prison later that week.
“Having represented scores of survivors of sexual battery in decades of personal injury advocacy and appreciating the lifelong pain that is inflicted on survivors, predators like Brock Turner make my blood boil.
“Thursday [June 2, 1016] is Brock Turner’s sentencing for assault with intent to commit
rape and penetrating the victim while she was obliviously drunk.
“Universities are wont to downplay state prison crimes by the brightest and the best because it tarnishes the patina of exclusivity, brilliant students, and the national championships that generate the reputation for amassing commanding wealth. Understandably so. A defenseless woman was targeted prey. Turner pushed her dress over her head and assaulted her. When passersby rescued the victim, Turner ran off.
“That he was another drunk college student doesn’t change the fact that she will never recover. Turner comes from “the right side of the tracks” as a Stanford scholar athlete with a promising future. He trashed a life by acting out violent fantasies in an alcohol haze supported by a powerful subculture that snickers at liquoring coeds, ignores the brutality of forced oral copulation and rape, and fills the void of trivialized adolescent sexual education by parents, schools and religious institutions with a paradigm of violent male pornography.
“Prison is a consequence he should not escape. Nationally 40% of graduating college women report being victimized. That includes Stanford as well.
“I don’t know the victim, but she is my daughter.
“Yours too.”
Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Mr. Turner to three months in the county jail, a slap on the wrist for having inserted his fingers into the vagina of an unconscious woman whom he treated a prey and attempted to rape. When the police arrived Turner had an erection. Not that drunk. Only 0.13. Shockingly, this elite and privileged white boy – Turner is not a man by any stretch of the imagination – from the Stanford booze crowd got special treatment. Would not happen to an unemployed black or brown high school dropout with a gang tattoo from the other side of the tracks.
