People v. Turner

People v. Turner was a criminal case held in California's Santa Clara County Superior Court in March of 2016 regarding a sexual assault that occurred on the campus of Stanford University in January of 2015. The defendant, twenty-year-old former Stanford freshman Brock Turner, was accused of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, known to the media only as Emily Doe, on the university's campus while intoxicated after a night of partying. Witnesses notified police, and Turner was arrested and subsequently charged with five counts—later reduced to three—of felony sexual assault.

In the trial that lasted about two weeks in March of 2016, Turner was convicted on all three charges and sentenced to six months in prison and three years of probation. He would also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. The national media covered People v. Turner extensively. The judge in the case was severely criticized for sentencing Turner to only six months of prison for sexual assault. Turner was released from prison in September of 2016 after serving three months.

Background

Brock Allen Turner was born in 1995 in Dayton, Ohio. He attended high school in Dayton from 2010 to 2014. He became a skilled swimmer and eventually earned a swimming scholarship to Stanford University in Stanford, California. He began attending the school in the fall of 2014 semester.

The incident in question in the People v. Turner case occurred on the Stanford campus on the night of January 17 and the early morning of January 18, 2015. On January 17, Turner attended a party at a fraternity house on campus. He met the victim in the case, known as Emily Doe, at this party. Doe was a recent college graduate who was visiting her sister, a Stanford student, at the time. Turner and Doe became heavily intoxicated and eventually left the party together. Doe passed out behind a dumpster near the fraternity house. It was now about 1:00 a.m. on January 18.

Turner then allegedly removed the unconscious Doe's underwear and sexually assaulted her. At this time, two Swedish graduate students at the university, Carl-Fredrik Arndt and Peter Jonsson, were riding their bicycles past the fraternity house. The students later told police they witnessed Turner raping a partially naked woman behind the dumpster. Arndt and Jonsson shouted at Turner to stop, after which Turner attempted to flee the scene. One of the students chased and tripped Turner, and the two men then held him while they called the police. The police arrived and arrested Turner.

Doe, meanwhile, according to her later testimony, had remained unconscious and unresponsive throughout the incident. Police and paramedics who initially treated her at the scene claimed she did not respond to shouted questions, shaking, or pain stimulants. Doe became conscious again at about 4:15 a.m. at the hospital. She was classified as a rape victim and was treated extensively for abrasions on and inside her body.

Later on January 18, Turner was released from jail after posting $150,000 bail. Ten days later, Turner appeared at the Santa Clara County Courthouse and was formally charged with five counts of felony sexual assault. The charges included rape of an intoxicated person, rape of an unconscious person, sexual penetration by a foreign object of an unconscious person, sexual penetration by a foreign object of an intoxicated person, and assault with intent to commit rape. Turner pleaded not guilty and hired a defense team for a trial. He withdrew from Stanford University soon after this, and the school banned him from ever returning to campus.

Overview

The two counts of rape were dropped at Turner's preliminary hearing in October of 2015. Turner would stand trial on the three remaining sexual assault charges. The trial, People of the State of California v. Brock Allen Turner, began on March 14, 2016, at the Santa Clara County Superior Court in Palo Alto, California. In arguing its case, the prosecution detailed Turner's history of alleged drug and alcohol use, referencing text messages that indicated Turner had frequently partied, consumed alcohol, and used drugs such as marijuana since high school.

Ultimately, the prosecution argued that Turner had known Doe was heavily intoxicated and sexually assaulted her anyway. Doe herself testified in court, reading a more than 7,000-word letter she had written to Turner in which she criticized him for failing to show remorse for his actions. Prosecutors urged Judge Aaron Persky, who was presiding over the trial, to sentence Turner to six years in prison.

Turner's defense maintained, from information provided by Turner, that Doe had been conscious at the time of the incident and consented to sexual activity with Turner. On March 30, 2016, the jury found Turner guilty on all three charges. Sentencing was set for early June. Prior to sentencing, Turner's attorney requested that Persky sentence Turner to four months in prison because he was a mostly good person who made poor choices on the night of the assault.

Turner faced a maximum of fourteen years in state prison, but on June 2, 2016, Persky sentenced him to six months in prison and three years of probation. Turner would also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. Media outlets, activists, and many other groups and individuals throughout the United States condemned Persky for the relative brevity of the sentence compared to the crime. Persky contended the sentence was sufficient punishment for Turner because it would significantly affect the rest of his life, including by preventing him from ever participating on a US swimming team in the Olympics, as Turner had hoped to do.

Turner was released from prison on September 2, 2016, after serving three months of his sentence. He then returned to Ohio to live with his parents. People v. Turner had drawn national attention to the issue of campus sexual assault. Then vice president of the United States Joe Biden stated in a public letter to Doe that she was brave for testifying against her attacker and that she had started a national conversation about accountability in sexual assault cases.

Bibliography

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Kadvany, Elena. "Trial Begins in Stanford Sex-Assault Case." Palo Alto Online, 17 Mar. 2016, www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/03/17/trial-begins-in-stanford-sex-assault-case. Accessed 8 Mar. 2017.

Lombardo, Kayla. "How a Rape Case Involving a Stanford Swimmer Became National News." Sports Illustrated, 9 June 2016, www.si.com/more-sports/brock-turner-stanford-swimming-sexual-assault-rape-case. Accessed 8 Mar. 2017.

Namako, Tom. "Joe Biden Writes an Open Letter to Stanford Survivor." BuzzFeed, 9 June 2016, www.buzzfeed.com/tomnamako/joe-biden-writes-an-open-letter-to-stanford-survivor?utm‗term=.caMOwMrgPG#.uqBWzZkXx4. Accessed 8 Mar. 2017.

Rocha, Veronica, and Brittny Mejia. "Stanford Swimmer Convicted of Sex Assault Lied about Never Partying, Documents Show." Los Angeles Times, 10 June 2016, www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-stanford-rape-case-documents-release-20160610-snap-htmlstory.html. Accessed 8 Mar. 2017.

Sanchez, Ray. "Stanford Rape Case: Inside the Court Documents." CNN, 11 June 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/06/10/us/stanford-rape-case-court-documents/. Accessed 8 Mar. 2017.

Stack, Liam. "Light Sentence for Brock Turner in Stanford Rape Case Draws Outrage." New York Times, 6 June 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/us/outrage-in-stanford-rape-case-over-dueling-statements-of-victim-and-attackers-father.html?‗r=1. Accessed 8 Mar. 2017.

"Timeline of Significant Dates in the Life of Brock Turner." Associated Press, 11 June 2016, bigstory.ap.org/article/962a8de554994637afce94a22afb78e9/timeline-significant-dates-life-brock-turner. Accessed 8 Mar. 2017.