I would say that criminal defense reached a new low when part of the sentencing package for a
convicted rapist characterized his unusually demeaning and ugly sexual assault as "20 minutes of action."
The problem is that it's nether new nor a low. It is, however, a rare public window into what goes on with the "client-uber-alles" mentality of criminal defense.
Let's just say it out loud: To the defense side, victims are human garbage. Their rights count for zip. Their humanity counts for zip. And the legal profession tolerates it.
But we don't have to tolerate the judge, Aaron Persky, who then cheerfully gave the rapist -- a college athlete who could easily have overpowered the victim even if she had been conscious, which she was not -- six months in the county jail (of which he is likely to serve just three). The voters can get Judge Persky removed.
It should not take a politically incorrect crime like rape to awaken us to how degraded legal "ethics" have become, and how much judges need reining in with mandatory minimum sentencing statutes. But we need to start where starting is possible, and we need to start now.
To file a complaint:
Fill out this form, print out, and mail.
What to write:
Date, Name, Phone Number, Address
Attorney's Name: N/A
Attorney's Phone Number: N/A
Court: Superior
County: Santa Clara
Name of case and case number: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA vs. BROCK ALLEN TURNER, Case no. B1577162
Please specify what action or behavior of the judge... is the basis of your complaint: Appearance of bias toward a particular class: Persky sentenced fellow Stanford alumnus and athlete to an unusually lenient sentence of 6 months for a unanimously guilty verdict on three counts of sexual assault. Despite Mr Turner being caught in the act. Inappropriate comments on the bench: "a prison sentence would have a severe impact on him ( Brock Turner)" in relation to why this convicted criminal would serve such a short sentence. Present: Judge Aaron Persky, District Attorney Jeff Rosen, Defense Attorney Mike Armstrong, Brock Allen Turner, Jane Doe, others.
Print out and mail to:
Commission on Judicial Performance
455 Golden Gate Avenue, Suite 14400
San Francisco CA, 91402
Are you suggesting a recall petition or a complaint to the Commission on Judicial Performance? They are not the same thing.
The CJP will not do anything in this case.
Bill, you show your Trumpian tendencies with the hypebole suggesting that defense attorneys view "victims [as] human garbage." That smear aside, it would be nice if you could/would (1) clarify what you are seeking to have happen to this judge AND (2) provide a copy of the sentencing transcript so that those of us eager to be better informed about the judge's actions here can read just what he had to say in this controversial case.
Doug, how tiresome are your endless calls for clarification. Bill's point is that this rapist got an unreasonably light sentence and that the judge is scum for giving it.
Defense attorneys may not view victims as "human garbage" in all cases, but there are plenty where they do. Do you remember the Danielle Van Dam case? The defense attorneys said that the Van Dams' swinger friends "could have killed" Danielle. Of course, that was a bald-faced lie because the same defense attorneys knew damned well that Westerfield was guilty--so here, defense attorneys were willing to lie and smear innocent people. If you think that's defensible morally, be my guest Doug.
Kent --
Both a recall petition and a complaint to the Commission are in order. Correct, my post did not make that at all clear.
Doug --
-- Contrary to what you seem to believe, this blog does not exist to see how many times you can type "Trump" or "Trumpian."
Politics is unavoidable here, but isn't going to be an obsessive subject. If it were, you could just as easily have said that I show my Hillaryesque tendencies by my hyperbole about how I ducked that gunfire at the Bosnian airport...
Oh......wait...............
-- If you like the way this callous and cruel misogynist of a defense lawyer treated the rape victim, why not quit dodging and just say so? If you don't, why don't you give an analysis, on the extensive evidence already available to you, of what was wrong with it, whether and to what extent it was a creature of "client-uber-alles" thinking, and what truth- and decency-oriented reforms in that thinking you are willing to support?
I do not deny that some lawyers are willing to lie and smear to serve their clients. Indeed, in a notable lawsuit over immigration policy, a federal judge accused DOJ lawyers of lying to him and ordered ehtics training for DOJ lawyers. I certainly support ethics/truth/decency training for all lawyers --- criminal and civil --- especially because there are many example of zealousness overcoming decency in the legal profession. (And, former Prez Bill Clinton is a great example of a lawyer without ethics who lied under oath for his favorite client (himself).)
I work hard to act truthfully and decently in this forum and all others, and I hope all other lawyers do the same. And part of being decent is not condemning others until you know all the pertinent facts. (And sorry that I have Trump on the brain, but he seems to have raised attacking others (including judges) to an art form, and Bill seems to really enjoy the attack mode. The Clintons, in contrast, seems to enjoy lying more than attacking. Johnson 2016!)
Namecalling and politicking aside, I am not going to defend or condemn others until I know the all the important facts. I do not really know any facts about the defense attorney's work in this case, so it is had to assess what he has done or to provide an informed analysis until I have a lot more details.
That all said, what I really wonder is (1) if any kind of plea deal was offered, and (2) what the client said to his lawyer about his behavior. I also wonder why the probation officer seemed much more sympathetic to the defendant than the victim in this case, and I also wonder how much everyone was influenced by the lifetime sex offender registration requirement here.
A new AP article reports that the prosecutor in the case does not support recalling the judge:
"But Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, whose office argued for a prison sentence for Turner, said Persky should not lose his job because of the ruling.
"'While I strongly disagree with the sentence that Judge Persky issued in the Brock Turner case, I do not believe he should be removed from his judgeship,' Rosen said in a statement Monday."
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article82086462.html#storylink=cpy
-- Prosecutor sucks up to sitting judge. Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Oldest trick in the book besides defendants' lying about the crime (e.g., Brock Turner), and sleazy civil litigants' grumbling about losing preliminary motions (e.g., take a guess).
-- Your reluctance to judge the defense lawyer here sans the entire record stands in stark contrast to your readiness (in the same comment, and elsewhere) to judge the DoJ lawyers who lied to the court about implementation of Obama's unlawful immigration plan -- and to launch that condemnation without having read anything like the entire record in that case. Do I detect a double standard?
-- The important stuff about this rape case is already known. The defense strategy was to further punish the victim, and intimidate her from telling her story, by painting her as a drunken slut who would have consented to sex with a mule. If you read her letter describing the ruthless, belligerent, sneering and gross cross-examination directed at her, there is no other conclusion to reach.
As you know, I don't have high expectations of the defense bar, but I was really hoping that that sort of cross-examination had gone the way of calling African American witnesses "niggers." I guess I need to wise up.
It's late in the East, so I'll just say one more word for now: I don't know much about sex registration -- those cases were not my cup of tea. But if one is going to have registries, where but in this case? Adult offender, strong and athletic, throwing a defenseless lady behind an outdoor dumpster to have his will, which she was powerless to resist. Tries to run away when spotted, fails, does a song-and-dance with the cops, puts on the fabulist defense that he got consent from an unconscious body, shows zero remorse, and, for the Grand Finale, has Pop dash off a letter about how he's lost his appetite for ribeye steak, a grave blow for just "20 minutes of action."
Ya know, a crabby old man like me is just missing all the mitigation oozing out of that story.
Bill, I have not personally "condemned" or "judged" DOJ lawyers in the Texas immigration lawsuit. Rather, I have reported on the statements, finding, orders by Judge Hanen. Indeed, one reason I will only report the judge's assertions/orders rather than vouch for them is because I have not read the entire record.
(To the extent there is a double-standard to be found in this thread, it relates to your ability to put words in other's mouths and attack your opponents for sport while suggesting others need to be schooled about "truth and decency.")
You say that "The important stuff about this rape case is already known." Really? Do you know how long the trial lasted and how many witnesses were called for both sides? Do you know how long the jury took to convinct? Do we know know why actual rape charges were apparently dismissed by the prosecutors before trial? Do we know whether and what kind of plea was offered and/or rejected that could have avoided the need to go to trial. Especially w/r/t the lifetime sex offender registration issue, do we know if any plea was discussed that could have let the defendant admit wrong-doing without having to endure that lifetime collateral consequence?
It seems to me all of these facts are important to know before we simple conclude that "the defense strategy was to further punish the victim, and intimidate her from telling her story." Indeed, the very decision by the defense to go to trial served to ensure that the victim would have to tell her story on the witness stand, and the victim's letter suggests she was eager not to have to tell her story --- she says she thought and seemingly hoped that the defendant was "going to settle, formally apologize, and we will both move on." And I see nothing in the victim's account of the trial that provides any factual basis for asserting the defense claimed the victim was someone a "who would have consented to sex with a mule"?
I do not disagree, Bill, that the defense's strategy was ultimately to seek an acquital by raising a reasonable doubt about the victim's claim that she did not consent, and this strategy did ultimately "put the victim on trial." But until I read at least some of the transcript of the cross from the trial, I really am not ready to jump to the conclusion that the defense attorney here was indisputably involved in "ruthless, belligerent, sneering and gross" conduct.
Very briefly, since the thread is getting near attenuation point:
Just read the victim's statement (which I believe you have done). If even half of what she says is true, then the defense lawyer's cross-examination was a disgrace. And I am far, far from the only person, liberal, conservative and in-between, who thinks so.
It was done to punish her for telling the truth about his sacred, ribeye-munching client; to trip her up with a thousand irrelevant but intimate details so she'd seem like a liar; and, as I said, to portray her as a drunken slut who would have had sex with a mule, so OF COURSE she consented to Mr. Nicey.
I had hoped that, with a more respectful attitude toward women in recent times, the law had seen the last of behavior like that toward rape victims. Looks like I was wrong.
I'm sorry. I favor basic decency over the self-serving (because good for business) lawyer anthem of client-uber-alles.
Putting entirely to one side the joke of a sentence she now has to live with, the victim's treatment by defense counsel leaves me less than proud to be a member of the legal profession. I strongly suspect that, at some level, you have the same or a similar feeling.