Brock Paper

Thursday I presented the facts of the Brock Turner case as well as discussed possible approaches for my paper.  For those that are unfamiliar with the facts, Brock Turner is a swimmer from Stanford that was convicted of rape of an unconscious woman.  He was charged on three felony counts, but Judge Persky dropped two of those.  He served three months (out of six) and will have to register as a sex offender for life. 

In my initial research on this case, nothing new stood out that wasn't conveyed through television media accounts (in what I saw).  However, I did come across a striking article that peaked my interest.  In the article, the author shares that, according to the legal classification of a rapist in CA, Brock Turner is not considered a rapist.  He's a sex offender, but not a rapist.  I was taken aback by this.  How could he not be considered a rapist? This brings to question the dichotomy between crime and punishment--does the punishment fit the crime and vice versa.  This would be in consideration of questions, such as: Are there model rape statutes? Are there competing models? How does California's laws stack up to these?  This becomes important questions when reviewing the way in which this case progressed (and the ultimate outcome).  Especially given that CA has amended the way in which they handle rape of an unconscious person (no eligibility of parole, if convicted) after the national and worldwide attention this case had. 

The other aspect of this case that I found interesting was in the target's letter.  That the county probation department recommended a year or less for Brock.  This would mean that Judge Persky was following their recommendation.  But is he not the judge?  Does he not have the ability to change the sentence length?  And, even if he wanted to follow the recommendation, why not do the maximum amount?  What does this say about the probation department?  Honestly, while some aspects of this case have been interesting, I have had more questions and frustrations with the outcome.

When thinking about the direction I want to take with my paper, at this time, I'm leaning towards the rhetoric of how society has reacted to not only the case, but rape/sexual assault as well.  I can see this both as a point of contention and expression.  But I would also like to explore the idea of why this case made national attention and not other cases.  I realize that this may be due to the graphic and disturbing details of the assault, but this case is by no means the only one.  Is there a case that is similar to this one, but does not have an athlete as the perpetrator?  There's also the approach of how men's accounts are preferred over women's.  Brock had one story and then a year later, his story changed.  I can see an evaluation on this aspect.  And like, Jackson said on this subject, women have been viewed as 'crazy' and 'emotional' while men have been viewed as 'logical' and 'controlled'.  An exploration on these differences could prove to be worthwhile as well.

As you can see, I'm not sure which way to go.