I read the entire missive and then visited the facebook page that exhorted this little cretin being on the US Olympic swim team I ( I trust that he will not be).
Her words are a really hard read. We have two daughters and even with my typically gentile temperament there is no guarantee that I would not seek to extract vengeance myself, but mostly on the kids attorney.
Six months? Ok/Fine.
But would that the judge had included a couple of swift kicks to his attorney’s tiny marbles.
I don’t know whether a judge in California may exceed the prosecutor’s recommendation, although I suspect that he or she can. If I had been the judge, this creep would have spent a lot more than six years behind bars.
He’s SUPPOSED to get a sentence that has a severe impact. It’s clear that too many jurists identify with the alpha males and elites and take it easy on them because they are the pillars of society, apparently. As long as these guys get settlements for financial impropriety and wrist-slap probations for murders, molestations, and rapes, the culture of impunity will only grow.
Six months in county is a disgrace to the legal system, three is an assault on basic decency. And he only got it because he was a “promising young athlete” and white and mommy and daddy had the money to pay a lawyer to try the case and press the buttons of this judge’s and apparently this probation officer whose seems to have some role in sentencing disproportionate to the time he or she devoted to the matter under the California system.
When you represent a rapist, you are, by definition going to have to do vile shit if it goes to trial. But, while he undoubtedly has some ready and convincing to the state bar reason for why it wasn’t subornation to waive the 5th and put the kid on the stand, his client’s testimony reeked of perjury. And that’s not okay.
Further, I find it fascinating that the only photos of this punk we seem to have seen, other than the ones taken at the trial, are yearbook and other happy,smiling, innocent “all American Boy” shots. No mug shots, no orange jumpsuit or perpwalk shots, no unflattering Facebook or Instagram photos. When have you ever seen that happen? That never happens. No, some crisis reputation management flacks got paid a lot of money to help sonny-boy avoid consequences for actions he somehow never got taught not to do.
No idea whether his parents bankrupted themselves paying for it all or whether they’re rich. I hope the former, fear the latter. But the only lesson this kid is ever going to learn from this is that consequences are for the weak and the poor. He’ll come out after his 12 weeks convinced he’s suffered mightily but he’ll also know he beat the rap because he let his lawyer drag his victim through hell and perjure himself, knowing he was guilty.
There’s so much pain and truth and power in this letter, that I almost don’t know where to start. This bit, though:
“He admitted to kissing other girls at that party, one of whom was my own sister who pushed him away. He admitted to wanting to hook up with someone. I was the wounded antelope of the herd, completely alone and vulnerable, physically unable to fend for myself, and he chose me. Sometimes I think, if I hadn’t gone, then this never would’ve happened. But then I realized, it would have happened, just to somebody else.”
I’ve said it before, but this is why aiming rape prevention program at women is bullshit. Teaching women not to be victims doesn’t prevent rape, it simply changes who is in the victim pool.
Men need to be taught that active consent is mandatory, not “sexy”, like some of the campus programs coyly suggest. And if they don’t learn they NEED TO GO TO JAIL. And not because they’ll be rape bait themselves, because rape is rape and it is never acceptable.
And that judge…I hope this sentence haunts him for the rest of his life. I hope it’s the lede in his fucking obituary, that he was condemned for the rest of his life for putting the welfare of an entitled white boy ahead of that of the young woman he raped.
“she has not only survived a horrendous experience but can move beyond it to become someone much more powerful and effective than she could have been had she not had this profoundly regrettable encounter”
Oh boy.
But mostly, it reads like you believe it will be easier for this woman to heal than it will be for this man (and I use that term in its loosest sense). You posit that the victim “can move beyond it to become …” She tells her story in court and you dust your hands of her victimization and move on to outlining all the steps the rapist needs to take. It’s pretty clear you have no idea what steps this woman will need to take to heal. I think you should educate yourself about that, really.
As for sexual assault, you should never, never, ever call sexual assault a “profoundly regrettable encounter.” It’s sexual assault.
Let us call things by their proper names. It makes everything simpler ~Oscar Wilde
And most likely he’ll spend it in the county jail rather than in prison. Three violent felonies begs for prison, in my opinion.
I would expect that the DA will appeal the sentence, although i think it is odd that they haven’t publically stated that.
Very true. I agree the sentence should be longer and served in a state penitentiary. Still, there will be some consequences. He will always have to answer “yes” to the questions, “Have you ever been arrested?” “Ever been convicted of a felony?” He will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. Prolly if he does go to the Olympics and win a medal, he won’t get his picture on a Wheaties box. Maybe Daddy can get him a job, but many doors have closed.
He shows up to mansplain how rapists should be rehabilitated (and correct our misperceptions) based on his counseling experience whenever there’s a comment thread about rape.
I agree, and begin with accepting responsibility for my clumsiness in expressing my confidence in this young woman’s ability to recover, as well demonstrated by her eloquent words, as well as my perhaps too precipitate pivot to trying to address the need for us to attack this problem at its root, namely the need for men to own our behavior, call it what it is, namely assault, and further ensure that we understand the roots of this behavior well enough to protect others from ourselves as well as help others heal from their pain.
My apologies for triggering your understandable indignation.
I hope he gets raped in the county lock up, then he will finally get it.
You, much like every rapist I have known, are apparently primarily interested in making yourself feel better.
In your case it seems to be easy, but the reality is that it isn’t that easy.
I’m not here to defend rapists, but I do want to help make our society, and in this case especially men, more self aware so that they are less likely to harm others.
I am happy to align myself with what I believe are the sentiments regarding her attacker of this brave and insightful woman, who, like many other targets I have worked with in the past is very interested in the rehabilitation of her attacker when she says:
"A year has gone by and he has had lots of time on his hands. Has he been seeing a psychologist? What has he done in this past year to show he’s been progressing? If he says he wants to implement programs, what has he done to show for it?
Throughout incarceration I hope he is provided with appropriate therapy and resources to rebuild his life. I request that he educates himself about the issue of campus sexual assault. I hope he accepts proper punishment and pushes himself to reenter society as a better person."
Statistics show that rapists who are apprehended, processed through the legal system, and given some form of legal consequences are at relatively low risk of reoffending.
The big remaining risk comes from those (primarily men) who neither society nor themselves see as rapists, but are so focused on trying to satisfy their own needs that they don’t consider the consequences for others, and too often end up raping others (or harming them in some other fashion), often without enough self-awareness or empathy to realize what they’re doing.
When we become obsessed with aiming our indignation and rage at others, thinking we thereby are addressing the problem, we fail to examine ourselves, our motivations, and too often the consequences of our attempts to satisfy our own desires.
That is when we are at greatest danger of hurting others.
So, yes, I have worked to try to rehabilitate sex offenders, with what I believe has been some success, but also with many failures, out of a hope that I can help them make their futures better for them and those they interact with.
But I also try to spread the word about the need for males in general to take the lead in examining our own behavior and see what we can do to improve our lives and those of the ones we love and otherwise interact with.
That girls statement is simply incredible. She is totally no bullshit. In a society where this smart, honest, fully self aware girl is left to simply rail on the internet while the sentencing judge openly worries about how the criminal may be damaged by a sentence of longer than 6 months for 3 sexual felonies without showing remorse for anything but being wasted- that just blows.
I am completely impressed by the empathy she shows for her attacker… She holds back forgiveness not for the painful demeaning non consensual assault- she finds a way to forgive the guy for that, but it’s the dishonest, anti social projecting of his guilt onto her, her sister and getting the judge, his lawyer and the probation officer to go along with that bullshit that she rightly has no forgiveness for- that is dead on survival skills and smarts. I hope this girl continues to rebuild her dignity and lives a life where joy and happiness can return. A truly heroic statement.
Having read the victim’s powerful statement, I think it’s going to be far easier for her to heal than it will be for him to heal. Healing requires acceptance: the victim has accepted what happened and understands that she bears no responsibility for it. Turner was still in denial at the time he wrote his statement: he blames the alcohol and he blames the victim for being drunk. He will likely go to his grave believing it was not his fault.
If it’s any consolation to anyone, Turner is going be on a registered sex offender for life and that is going to make things unpleasant for him. It will restrict where he can live. If his neighbors check up on him, they will find him there. In some jurisdictions his neighbors will be notified that a registered sex offender has moved into the neighborhood. His DNA will be on file: he’d better not reoffend. It’s minimal consolation to me: two women in my life were raped, but their rapists were never apprehended.
I’m curious to know if the judge had the victim’s statement prior to the hearing. She makes the impact very clear, and I’m somewhat surprised the judge went along with the probation officer’s recommendation.
[quote=“ncsteve, post:45, topic:38571”]
Further, I find the fact that the only photos of this punk we seem to have seen, other than the ones taken at the trial, are yearbook and other happy,smiling, innocent “all American Boy” shots fascinating. No mug shots, no orange jumpsuit or perpwalk shots, no unflattering Facebook or Instagram photos. [/quote]
Under SORNA he’s going to have his current photograph and a digitized copy of his Driver’s License or State ID sitting in the national database. DOJ’s SORNA guidelines don’t make it clear, but I kind of doubt that his Stanford yearbook photo is going to meet the requirement. Once his 180 days are up, he’ll be in the database. BTW, it appears he’s going to be a Tier III offender: the victim was incapacitated and his crime was worth more than a year of prison time. Under SORNA it’s the maximum sentence that counts rather than the imposed sentence.
Mommy and Daddy were busy enabling him again. That’s why I expect he’s going to see himself as a victim. Some comments in Dayton media say Dad’s a physician, so the expenses associated with this escapade must have put a serious dent in the family’s finances.
The judge has just raped her again. Its sick
Affluenza strikes again .
I have no words to say how much I appreciate your comments, but I just want you to know how much they mean to me. I cannot imagine the horror and nightmare this woman endured from the rape itself, and then to have these high-priced vultures pick through her life so they can drag her character through the mud, to victimize her that much further… she deserved justice to be carried out on him, and she instead received further insult. She is an amazing inspiration, and to have some intimate that he will have a harder time “recovering” is another insult. Thank you for taking time to put your thoughts out here.
Poor old English: I remember when it was a language.
Wherever is ex-Stanford?