Will Judge Get Recalled Over Brock Turner's Slap on the Wrist?

Even before Judge Aaron Persky's notoriously light sentencing of the Stanford University athlete, the Brock Turner sexual assault case made national headlines due to the nearly unfathomable facts of the case. Turner was found on top of his unconscious victim, behind a dumpster, by two other students, who held him until police could arrive. He claimed the sex was consensual, while his victim didn't remember it happening.

Despite the fact that prosecutors were seeking six years, Turner was only sentenced to six months. Judge Persky cited Turner's lack of a criminal history, his character, his intoxication, and his remorsefulness as justification for the slap on the wrist sentence.

A Short-Sighted Social Sentence?

As a result of the short sentence, Judge Persky became the target of a recall effort, which has succeeded in securing enough signatures to put the jurist's recall on the ballot in California's Santa Clara County this coming June. Judge Persky, during the sentencing, seemed to make statements that came off as sympathetic to Turner, and seemed to express how external factors, like the media treatment of the case, justified the mere slap on the wrist.

Persky stands in stark contrast to Judge Aquilina, who was recently championed as a hero of victims of sexual assault, for her stern treatment and sentencing of a convicted sexual predator.

Law Prof Prowess

After the short sentence was announced, a Stanford Law professor, Michele Dauber, spoke out against the sentencing and started a recall effort to hold Judge Persky accountable. She asserted that:

Aaron Persky is telling these women don't bother calling police. Even if you get through a trial and even if you manage to get a conviction, I will not impose a serious sanction.

The recall petition quickly generated the required 95,000 signatures to put the recall on the ballot, and now the question will go to the voters. However, while the masses online may have rallied behind prof. Dauber to get Persky recalled, there are law profs on the other side of this argument as well.

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