Pro: Judge lost community’s trust with sentencing decision
Last fall, nearly 100,000 Santa Clara County voters signed a petition to put the recall of Judge Aaron Persky on the June 5 ballot.
Persky shocked our community when he sentenced Stanford swimmer Brock Turner to only six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. A jury unanimously convicted Turner of three felony sex crimes. Turner faced 14 years in prison — he served 90 days.
After the Turner decision, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen removed Persky from another sexual assault case, saying he lacked confidence that Persky could “fairly participate” in the case. Jurors refused to serve in Persky’s courtroom. One juror from the Turner case said Turner’s sentence made “a mockery of the whole trial and the ability of the justice system to protect victims of assault and rape.”
As Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Fremont, said: “It sends the wrong message: that if you are from a privileged background, if you are a star athlete, and if you commit your crime on a college campus, then the law does not apply to you.”
For women, Turner’s sentence isn’t just shocking, it’s dangerous. It reinforces the myth that sexual assault is not serious. Why would a victim go through the long process of medical examinations and invasive questions if the result is a slap on the wrist?
Sadly, the Turner sentence was not an isolated incident. Persky, a former Stanford athlete, has a pattern of bias favoring athletes and other privileged perpetrators of violence against women. For example, Persky adjusted the sentences of two different college football players convicted of domestic violence to accommodate their football schedules.
Persky also sentenced a Sunnyvale man convicted of felony child pornography to only four days in jail and three years’ probation. This sentence was set by Persky, not the D.A. The man, Robert Chain, had dozens of images of little girls, including an infant, being sexually abused. Persky also said he would be “receptive” to reducing Chain’s felony conviction to a misdemeanor after only one year of probation — contrary to the probation recommendation.
Even those who have called the recall misguided have criticized Persky’s judgment. UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky called the Turner sentence “grossly inadequate punishment” and “an “abuse of discretion.” Former Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Ron Del Pozzo called Turner’s six-month sentence “inconsistent with the jury’s verdict” and said he expected a four- to six-year prison sentence based on similar cases in our county.
Both the San Jose Mercury News and the Palo Alto Weekly have endorsed the recall. (Unfortunately we were never given the opportunity to speak with the editorial board of The Chronicle.) The Mercury News wrote that “the recall will make it easier for victims to come forward and encourage prosecutors to aggressively pursue cases ... He should be recalled.” The Weekly was even more withering in its criticism, writing that “Judge Persky abused his discretion, disrespected a jury, failed a crime victim and broke trust with the public he serves. There is no judicial accountability if these failures don’t lead to his removal from office.”
That’s why more than 50 elected officials from Santa Clara County, and hundreds of business, union, women’s rights and community leaders have endorsed this recall.
This recall will not affect judicial independence. Under the California Constitution, all county judges are elected to six-year terms and are accountable to voters. Persky would next be up for re-election in 2022. The recall simply moved up the date of that election to 2018.
Santa Clara County voters deserve a judge who takes violence against women seriously. Persky has lost the community’s trust and with good reason. Please vote YES on June 5.