Last week, a petition was launched to impeach California Judge Aaron Persky, who caused an uproar after sentencing “Stanford Rapist” Brock Turner to a measly 6-months in jail after he was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster at a frat house.
The victim, who some in the media are referring to as “Emily Doe,” read a powerful statement to Turner during his sentencing — a statement that later went viral on the Internet garnering millions of supporters.
“You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today,” she read in court during her victim impact statement, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. “The damage is done, no one can undo it. And now we both have a choice. We can let this destroy us, I can remain angry and hurt and you can be in denial, or we can face it head on, I accept the pain, you accept the punishment, and we move on.”
The petition was launched by Stanford law professor Michele Dauber. Many, including Dauber, are baffled as to why Judge Persky would give Turner such a light sentence. According to Dauber in an interview with NBC News, Persky used to specialized in going after violent sexual predators in his district of Santa Clara County.
According to CNN, Dauber’s petition on change.org to have Persky impeached has surpassed 1 million signatures. The petition argues that despite a “unanimous guilty verdict, three felony convictions, the objections of 250 Stanford students, Jeff Rosen the district attorney for Santa Clara, as well as the deputy district attorney who likened Turner to ‘a predator searching for prey,’ Judge Persky allowed the lenient sentence suggested by the probation department.”
From CNN:
And that’s just the change.org petition. Other petitions at moveon.org and the White House’s We the People site have each garnered more than 100,000 signatures.
Whether or not the petition will result in impeachment hearings for Persky is yet to be seen.
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