PALO ALTO — When Brock Turner walks out of jail Friday after serving half of a widely reviled six-month sentence for sexual assault, he’ll return to a hot political landscape.
Turner will return to his home state, Ohio, where he will spend three years on probation.
Back in California, the fallout from his sexual assault of an unconscious woman on the Stanford University campus will continue to shake up local courts and shape state laws.
Meanwhile, anger continues to be directed at Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, who critics say should be recalled for handing Turner a light sentence.
Persky is fighting for his political life and has set up a website to beat back recall efforts, collecting about $3,600 so far. Starting Tuesday, Persky will be reassigned at his own request to preside in civil cases instead of criminal.
The recall effort is led by Stanford law professor Michele Dauber, who says the campaign has collected half of its $500,000 fundraising goal to qualify a recall measure for the 2017 ballot.
Even local politicians have entered the fray. Palo Alto Mayor Pat Burt and Vicki Veenker, a Palo Alto attorney and candidate for state Assembly, recently declared Persky is not fit for the bench.
The recall campaign plans a protest for 10 a.m. Friday at the Santa Clara Hall of Justice in San Jose, steps from the Main Jail where Turner will be released.
Whether Turner will be greeted by protesters is unclear, as jail officials aren’t saying when exactly he’ll be released.
JoEllen Smith, an Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokeswoman, said Wednesday that the state’s Adult Parole Authority will supervise Turner’s probation and he has to report to it within 24 hours of arriving in Ohio. She declined to say when Turner will return to Ohio for security reasons.
He is required to register as a sex offender for life.
In granting Turner’s request for transfer, officials reviewed his criminal history and record of compliance, as well as the possibility of successful rehabilitation, which hinges in part on family support and job opportunities.
As part of his probation, Turner must undergo sex offender, drug and alcohol counseling. He cannot drink alcohol or go anywhere alcohol is expected to be served.
Police can search him, his car and property without a warrant and he has to submit to polygraph tests.
“I think one of the worst things about him getting back out so early is she (the victim) now has to feel dread when she leaves her house because he can literally be anywhere,” Dauber said.
She holds Persky accountable for Turner not being in a penitentiary.
Burt said he decided to support Dauber’s cause because he has become convinced that Persky’s rulings show a pattern of bias.
“I view judicial independence as a very important principle in our judicial system, but it goes hand in hand with a strong allegiance to impartiality and lack of bias, and there just seems to be a pattern of leniency toward perpetrators who have backgrounds who the judge seems to empathize with,” Burt said.
He said the Turner case alone would not have caused him to ask for Persky to resign, but his actions in other cases show that the judge, a Stanford graduate and former athlete, can’t provide justice for all members of the community.
While Burt is scheduled to speak at the Recall Persky rally, Veenker said she will be in the audience to advocate for more dialogue on sexual assault.
“I have stated that I believe Judge Persky should resign; I have not supported the recall effort,” Veenker said in a statement. “It was apparent that the outcry over (Persky’s) decision was of such magnitude that the impact on the court would be sustained and substantial. We saw jurors refuse to serve and the DA refuse to bring cases in Judge Persky’s court. The sentencing decision was not simply unpopular, it impaired the judge’s ability to dispense justice.”
Persky’s decision in the Turner case was “ill-founded,” said Veenker.
Persky, who sentenced Turner to six months in county jail and three years of probation, followed the recommendation of Santa Clara County probation officials, who cited Turner’s “lack of a criminal history, his youthful age, and his expressed remorse and empathy toward the victim.”
The victim, who has declined media interviews, read a 12-page letter in court to Persky and said the probation officer’s recommendation is “a soft timeout, a mockery of the seriousness of (Turner’s) assaults, and of the consequences of the pain I have been forced to endure.”
Two state bills inspired by the victim in the Turner case, unanimously approved by the state Assembly last month, are waiting for Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature.
One measure written by Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen aims to strengthen the law that currently allows probation rather than prison time in rape and sexual assault convictions involving unconscious victims. Convictions for the sexual assault or rape of conscious victims draw harsher sentences.
Another measure on the governor’s desk broadens the definition of rape to include forced penetration with a foreign object involving any part of a victim’s body.
Turner, now 21, was convicted in March of assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated woman, sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object and sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object.
The former Stanford University student and all-star swimmer was arrested Jan. 18, 2015, after two Swedish graduate students found him atop a partially clothed, unconscious woman by a Dumpster outside a fraternity party.
San Francisco attorney Dennis Riordan, known for representing Barry Bonds, filed a notice to appeal Turner’s convictions on June 2, the day of the sentencing hearing.
Email Jacqueline Lee at jlee1@bayareanewsgroup.com or call her at 650-391-1334; follow her at twitter.com/jleenews.
