California voters just removed Judge Aaron Persky, after the judge gave Brock Turner a 6-month sexual assault sentence for the rape care that made headlines at Stanford University in 2016.
Back in 2016, Brock Turner, a Stanford swimmer, sexually assaulted an unconscious woman while on campus. He was convicted of three charges. sexual penetration with a foreign object of an intoxicated person, sexual penetration with a foreign object of an unconscious person, and intent to commit rape. However, the judge on the case, Aaron Persky, only gave him six months in jail with three years probation. For a case like this, the maximum jail sentence for sexual assault in the state of California would be 14 years.
The entire country was angered by the sentencing, especially when the judge explained his decision by sating Turner would not be a danger to others” and he was concerned that “a prison sentence would have a severe impact” on him. There was no mention of the victim at all while he sentenced...
Brock Turner's victim, who went by Emily Doe, wrote a 7,000 word letter about her experience and she shared it in the courtroom. The letter was so intense and powerful that CNN's Ashleigh Banfield, took 20 minuted to read the entire letter on the air. Showing real emotions as she read.
It was pretty apparent that the people of the state of California was not going to let this sentencing slide. And talk of recalling the judge began pretty soon after the ruling.
“As a judge, my role is to consider both sides,” Persky said in the statement filed with the county registrar. “It’s not always popular, but it’s the law, and I took an oath to follow it without regard to public opinion or my opinions as a former prosecutor.”
After this sentencing and the backlash that followed, California took action, making mandatory MINIMUM sentences for sexual assault cases and even closed a loophole in the law that let sexual assault be punished less if the victim was drunk. This is the first time a California judge has been removed in more than 80 years!