Leader of effort to recall embattled judge gets 2 rape threats

The first rape threat came to Michele Dauber in an envelope that exploded in glitter upon opening it — a “glitter bomb” courtesy of ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com.

Inside, there was also a note: “Since you are going to disrobe ( Judge Aaron) Persky, I am going to treat you like ‘Emily Doe’. Let’s see what kind of sentencing I get for being a rich white male.”

Emily Doe was the young woman sexually assaulted by Brock Turner behind a dumpster in 2015, a case that led to national outrage when Persky sentenced Turner, a Stanford swimmer, to only six months in jail and three years’ probation for the three felony counts of sexual assault.

Dauber, chairwoman of the “Recall Persky Campaign,” is the woman trying to disrobe Persky, a California Superior Court judge.

The second rape threat came about a week later, bearing the same words. This time, on Valentine’s Day, there was white powder inside instead of glitter.

“It was one of those things when time slowed down a little bit,” Dauber, a Stanford University law professor, told The Washington Post in an interview Monday.

The threats come at a time of escalating tensions between those supporting and opposing Persky’s removal, which Dauber says appears to have emboldened some of Persky’s more ardent supporters to target her personally and more aggressively. Such hostility, Dauber said, only seemed to increase in the weeks after the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters on Jan. 23 approved the Recall Persky Campaign’s petition to be on the ballot in June, after it attained more

than 94,000 signatures.

Following the Feb. 14 threat containing the suspicious white substance, Stanford evacuated parts of the law school building while authorities sought to determine whether the substance was harmful. Ultimately, Stanford said in a statement, the substance

was found to be harmless — but Dauber said the case has since been referred to the FBI for investigation. (The FBI in San Francisco said in a statement to The Washington Post that it could neither confirm nor deny existence of the investigation.)

“It’s been upsetting and scary, but I think it’s very important that the campaign goes forward,” Dauber said. “We’re not going to be intimidated. We’re going to keep advocating for survivors of sexual assault and of violence against women. I think it’s very important to send a message that we’re not deterred.”

After Dauber and dozens of others disturbed by Brock Turner’s sentence launched the campaign to remove Persky, the judge’s own supporters fired back with their own campaign: Voices Against Recall.

The group claims the effort to remove Persky is misguided, based on outrage over a single sentencing decision, and that recalling a duly elected judge poses a threat to judicial independence.

As Erwin Chemerinsky, dean and law professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Law, wrote in a commentary for the Sacramento Bee: “If there is disagreement with a judge’s decision, the appropriate remedy is to appeal the ruling, not to seek removal of the judge. Such recall efforts are a serious threat to judicial independence as judges will fear that unpopular rulings will cost them their jobs. Justice, and all of us, will suffer when judges base their decisions on what will satisfy the voters.”

LaDoris Cordell, a retired California judge and one of the loudest voices supporting Persky, told CNN that she believed that if the recall were successful, the urge to appease voters would end up negatively affecting defendants of color in the criminal justice system. She said Persky was a “good and fair judge who did absolutely nothing wrong,” and that Dauber’s campaign was based on lies and distortions.

AP 2016 Stanford University law professor Michele Dauber, as chairwoman of the Recall Persky Campaign, is trying to disrobe California Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky. She has been targeted by Persky supporters.