Stand with survivors, vote yes to recall Judge Persky
Last fall, nearly 100,000 Santa Clara County voters signed a petition to put the recall of Judge Persky on the June 5 ballot. We ask you to vote yes.
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 felonies, including assault with intent to rape and sexual penetration of an unconscious and intoxicated person. 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 a case involving an unconscious victim. Jurors refused to serve in Persky’s courtroom. One juror from the Turner case wrote Persky an open letter saying 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 said when Turner was sentenced in 2016: “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 reinforces the myth that sexual assault isn’t serious. Why would a victim go through medical examinations and invasive questions if the result is a slap on the wrist? Based on our experience, we believe this sentence will deter others from coming forward.
Sadly, the Turner sentence was not an isolated incident. Persky has a pattern of bias favoring athletes and other privileged perpetrators of violence against women. Persky adjusted the sentences of two college football players convicted of domestic violence, allowing them to accommodate their football schedules. In another case, he allowed a software engineer convicted of severely beating
his fiancée to serve weekend time in jail.
Persky sentenced a Sunnyvale man convicted of felony child pornography to only four days in jail. The sentence was set by Persky, not the DA. 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. That is contrary to the probation recommendation.
Even some of Persky’s supporters have criticized his judgment. Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky called the Turner sentence “grossly inadequate punishment” and “an “abuse of discretion.”
Former Santa Clara County Judge Ron Del Pozzo called Turner’s six month sentence “inconsistent with the jury’s verdict” and said the expected a four-to-six year prison sentence based on other similar cases in our county.
That’s why elected officials from Santa Clara County, including Rep. Khanna, state Sens. Jim Beall and Jerry Hill, San Jose Vice Mayor Magdalena Carrasco, hundreds of business, union, women’s rights, and community leaders, South Bay Labor Council (AFL-CIO), California Nurses Association and National Organization for Women back 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 the people they serve. Persky would next be up for reelection 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 doesn’t. He has lost the community’s trust. Vote “yes” on June 5.
Dr. Sophia Yen, an adolescent medicine specialist and the CEO and co-founder of Pandiahealth. com. Rebeca Armendariz is a political community organizer for SEIU-USWW. Jennie Richardson is a board member of Women’s March Bay Area. They are co-chairs of the Committee to Recall Judge Persky.