BOTH SIDES HOLD RALLIES IN BATTLE OVER JUDGE
The pro-Persky campaign didn’t get off the ground until recently, allowing recall proponents to gain the upper hand for nearly two years
SAN JOSE >> Determined to win over undecided voters, both sides in the battle to recall Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky held impassioned rallies Wednesday to whip up support less than a week before the high-profile election.
Persky drew national notoriety for giving a six-month jail sentence to former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner for sexually assaulting a woman in early 2015 outside a campus frat party. But on Wednesday recall proponents expressed fresh outrage: They
blasted the judge’s biggest campaign contributor, lawyer James McManis, and called for Persky to disavow McManis’ recent comments published by Vogue that downplayed the crime and criticized the victim.
Hours later, Persky appeared for the first time at a rally, joined by the biggest crowd the anti-recall campaign has drawn since the judge created a national uproar with his sentence of Turner in June 2016. Turner, who dropped out of Stanford, was released after three months under a state law intended to relieve jail overcrowding, save taxpayers’ money and
reduce mass incarceration. State law also requires him to register for the rest of his life as a sex offender.
Persky’s rally drew about 60 people, including a phalanx of judges who stood behind the podium to support their colleague outside the county building on Hedding Street at lunchtime. Speakers included District Attorney Jeff Rosen, Public Defender Molly O’Neal and the judge himself.
Persky noted that it took courage for his supporters to show up.
People “worry, what will people
think?” Persky said, imploring voters to “take this seriously, look long and hard at the issue.”
Recall proponents have framed the issue as a referendum on “rape culture.”
But one of the recall’s opponents with her own emotional story about surviving rape sees it differently. Lawyer Angela Storey, who is one of the candidates running on the June 5 ballot to replace Persky if he is recalled, revealed that she had been raped, in 1992.
At the No Recall rally, Storey said she was in her second month of her freshman year at American University in Washington, D.C., when she was assaulted, prompting her to drop out and move back in with her parents in Sunnyvale. Eventually, she attended Foothill Community College and then transferred to UCLA.
“I understand the trauma,” Storey said. “I know it personally. But this recall does not address the hundreds of untested rape kits or the need for more advocates of survivors.”
Prosecutor and recall supporter Cindy Hendrickson is also running to replace Persky.
Public Defender Molly O’Neal took pains to point out that she opposed the recall even though she is a “feminist” and “mother.”
Recall opponents argue that removing Persky from office four years before his term ends is all but certain to pressure other judges into imposing harsher sentences based on public opinion, which would have a disproportionate effect on the many people of color in the criminal justice system. Rosen, whose office sought a six-year prison sentence in the Turner case, once again pointed out that independence from popular opinion is what has allowed judges to rule on civil rights, integrated schools, free speech, access to birth control and marriage equality.
The pro-recall rally was held Wednesday morning outside the offices of Persky’s biggest donor, McManis. Speakers at the 50 West San Fernando St. event included Esther Peralez-Dieckmann, executive director of Next Door Solutions; and San Jose Vice Mayor Magdalena Carrasco. About 30 people attended, some with signs that said “Stop victim blaming,” and the “Right to Bare Arms! Tummy, legs, breasts with no fear of rape.”
The reason a woman is attacked is “not her clothing, her behavior or what she chooses to ingest,” said Esther Peralez-Dieckmann, executive director of Next Door Solutions, which serves survivors of domestic violence. “The question is, why don’t men stop perpetrating violence.”
Recall proponents are angry at McManis for statements he made in a taped interview with a Vogue reporter, disparaging the victim in the Turner case known as Emily Doe. The article quotes McManis as saying that Doe “was not attacked” and that she did not write her 12-page victim impact statement, which went viral two years ago after Turner’s sentencing. It took the jury less than two days after listening to Turner testify to find him guilty.
Recall proponents have demanded that Persky disavow those comments and disassociate himself from McManis.
Asked by this news organization Wednesday if he would do so, Persky wouldn’t say. Instead, he said he has focused on the need for judicial independence, not on the facts of the case, which he is prohibited from discussing under state judicial canons while the case is on appeal. He also cited the First Amendment, indicating he could not control people’s free speech.
However, the judge may benefit from the strategy, despite recall proponents’ abhorrence, particularly with male voters, more of whom already support retaining the judge. According to a poll conducted for this news organization and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group earlier this month, 44 percent of men likely to vote oppose the recall, compared to only a quarter of women.
Two key factors are likely to help determine the outcome of the election — who turns out to vote and how the 21 percent of voters who are undecided cast their ballots. Those voters would have to break heavily against the recall for it to lose.
The poll found that nearly half of likely voters — 46 percent — support removing Persky from office, compared to 33 percent who oppose his ouster. One factor at play is that the pro-Persky campaign didn’t get off the ground until recently, allowing recall proponents to gain the upper hand for nearly 18 months. The judge focused on trying to block the recall in court.
The pro-recall rally was repeatedly interrupted by recall opponent Steve White, who tried to block the podium from the view of TV cameras. San Jose police were summoned to the scene and got him to back off. Michele Dauber, the Stanford law professor leading the recall, said recall backers did not call police, as far as she knows.