Stanford rape sentence fits a disturbing pattern
When a former Stanford University swimmer convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman gets sentenced to just six months in a county jail, you have to wonder whether the courts will ever stop treating rape like some naughty, boys-will-beboys escapade.
In case you missed the social media firestorm over this miscarriage of justice: Brock Turner, 20, was found guilty of three felonies, including assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated or unconscious person, for the January 2015 assault that occurred after both left a fraternity party. Prosecutors asked for six years in state prison.
Judge Aaron Persky instead gave Turner what will likely amount to three months, in the county jail rather than state prison. The overly lenient sentence might have gotten little notice but for the searing and eloquent letter by the 23-year-old victim, who read it aloud in a Santa Clara County courtroom.
If there are any doubts about the violence and enduring damage of rape, her words should obliterate them. She told of waking up on a hospital gurney, learning that she had been attacked and wondering whether her body was contaminated or who had touched it: “I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital.”
Even so, she did not want to see Turner “rot away in prison.” But she did want justice and found the probation officer’s recommendation for a year or less in a county jail to be “a mockery of the seriousness” of his crime and of her pain. And so it is.
In sentencing, Persky cited Turner’s youth, his lack of any “significant” criminal record and his intoxication during the attack. The judge seemed to buy into Turner’s self-portrayal as a smalltown Ohio boy, an “inexperienced drinker and party goer,” despite prosecution evidence that Turner had smoked pot, taken drugs and used alcohol in high school.
If this case were a singular event, it would be bad enough. But the story of the privileged college athlete getting little or no punishment for sexual assault has become a cliché.
In the latest episode, an investigation found last month that Baylor University officials discouraged victims from even reporting allegations of assault by football players to police.
Even when courts do get involved, some judges shockingly treat rape lightly, particularly when it doesn’t involve a knife or a gun. To be clear, rape — even without a conventional weapon — is a violent crime. Some attackers use alcohol as their weapon, finding a woman too drunk to consent. Children and teenagers do not entice adults to rape them. And first offenders do not get a pass for their first rape.
Judges should, of course, take into account a defendant’s character, record and remorse — but not to the extent that it outweighs the impact on the victim or undermines deterrence.
That said, calls for violence against Judge Persky are wrong, and the calls for his removal are overdone. An otherwise fair judge should not lose his job for a single misjudgment.
Nevertheless, the public backlash is a heartening sign of progress in understanding this often misunderstood crime.