Stanford Rapist.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/06/05/3784913/stanford-sexual-assault-dad-...

And a very triggering...

https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-vic...

I've heard about this on a social networking site I use. I haven't read any of the actual articles (or that bastard's letter) because I've seen the gist of it from the conversations and I do not really want to go intentionally make my blood broil. This whole thing is just so disgusting.

I'll go on record as saying I'm mixed about it.

Wth is there to be mixed about?!

>5 .Monkey.: You took the words out of my mouth ...

The comments on https://www.facebook.com/Brockturnerfor2026lympics/ are just stomach-churning.

That was an incredible letter the woman wrote.

>7 Taphophile13: I can't look.

>9 sturlington: You don't want to go there. I only read two of them; exactly the bros supporting poor misunderstood men comments, similar to the father, that you would expect.

Reading the rape victim's letter is really hard, but I gritted my teeth and did it because I wanted to say I hear her. Her words didn't just fall into the empty vacuum of cyberspace, they reached me.

Towards the end of the letter, she says this about the sentencing:

As this is a first offence I can see where leniency would beckon. On the other hand, as a society, we cannot forgive everyone’s first sexual assault or digital rape. It doesn’t make sense. The seriousness of rape has to be communicated clearly, we should not create a culture that suggests we learn that rape is wrong through trial and error. The consequences of sexual assault needs to be severe enough that people feel enough fear to exercise good judgment even if they are drunk, severe enough to be preventative.

Sentencing is where we in the legal system seem to decide just how severe a crime really is. "guilty" is a verdict, but sentencing is a value judgment. We don't evaluate murder by "trial and error" as she puts it. We never say, "oh, he killed someone, but he was drunk and he never killed anyone before, so let's not ruin his future."

Rape should carry the same consequences. Sexual assault should carry the same gravity. But the reason it doesn't, frankly, is because all those college kids, all those people looking to hook up and not picky about the mental state of their partners, would have to then deal with the reality that every time they had sex without consent it was an automatic felony.

The ugly truth is, they don't feel like they are committing a felony. They don't think they are doing anything wrong, not really. They don't think its all that bad, having sex with someone too drunk to consent. And they don't want to deal with a society where every drunken hook up could ruin the rest of their lives.

This is because, bluntly, in their minds, they matter, but the person they have sex with, does not.

>5 .Monkey.:

Mixed isn't the right word (and that post came at the tail end of a 2 day 28 hour work stretch with 6 hours of sleep, so I apologise for that). As it is, something about the three articles in conjunction leaves me uneasy. And I'm not sure I can articulate (as in, the three pieces are triggering my autistic aphasia) precisely why or what.

>11 southernbooklady:

Well said. I also saw and avoided headlines online, not wanting to know about this, thinking: I already know about this.

But then I saw >1 Jesse_wiedinmyer:, especially the link to the letter the young woman wrote. I agree it's important for me to read her words. I think I'm going to leave it at that, I don't want to read more about it, I already know about this.

And now I think: I can't be content hiding behind the fact I already know about it. It's not just history, it's present day, it's tomorrow. So.

>13 elenchus: I avoided this for a while because I 'already knew' and then read the young woman's letter for exactly the reason you articulated. I also agree with your last point. As long as there are people who think like that young man's father and publicly comment and voice opinions like the comments on that foul FB site, I think it's my responsibility to engage, no matter the discomfort.

Thank you, friends -- I had avoided reading her letter but I read it with your encouragement. What a powerful piece.

I was speaking with my sister-in-law this weekend about how pervasive these views are. It's clear from the father's letter where the son learned that women are objects and consent doesn't matter.

Thoughts as I rode in to work today:

I'm grieved to think a fellow human being would treat someone else this way, all the more that he seemingly has so little understanding, remorse, or motivation to acknowledge his personal responsibility to the young woman afterward.

I'm worried to think that first, I am steeped in the same culture the assaulter is, and the parallel concern: am I doing enough to counter that for my young son, also growing up in that same culture?

I'm frightened that my spouse could be assaulted, and again, my young daughter goes to school and eventually will leave home to interact with other people who harbour many of the same ugly views as the assaulter in the Stanford attack.

And, I'm most heartened this woman's sister is able to be there for her (and she for her sister), and she herself found it within her to speak out, stand up, resist the ridiculous world she found herself in after surviving this brutal assault.

I'm not yet certain how to discuss this and related issues with my kids, but clearly my spouse and I will have to.

Edited: sorry Jesse & thanks, Monkey!

>17 susanbooks: Is the first link in >1 Jesse_wiedinmyer: not the father's letter? That's what the URL implied...

>18 .Monkey.:

Different sites though. Jezebel's (susanbooks linked to it) comment section is generally excellent especially on things like this and sometimes it's worthwhile to go there even for stuff you've seen elsewhere, just for support.

>11 southernbooklady:

We never say, "oh, he killed someone, but he was drunk and he never killed anyone before, so let's not ruin his future."

Yeah, actually, we do. Depending on how drunk the person was and what the state law is, an intoxication defense may lie. And judges always, whatever the crime, (at least in the U.S.) are supposed to look at all the circumstances of the offense and the defendant's prior record. Where I practiced, there's a huge long list of factors in mitigation (as well as in aggravation) that the judge is required to consider. They don't just say, they can't say, "because the defendant was convicted of X, he must receive this specific sentence."

There's a reason that judges have a range of sentencing options available: it's because every case is different, every defendant is different.

>20 lilithcat:
Yeah, actually, we do. Depending on how drunk the person was and what the state law is, an intoxication defense may lie. And judges always, whatever the crime, (at least in the U.S.) are supposed to look at all the circumstances of the offense and the defendant's prior record

But the range of allowable sentences remains pretty severe, even so, doesn't it? I looked up sentences for the various degrees of murder in the US and Murder One seems to be either the death penalty or life without parole. Something like involuntary manslaughter in North Carolina still gets between 10 and 59 months. At least, according to wiki.

But rapists? Apparently the vast majority of them never even go to prison:

https://rainn.org/news-room/97-of-every-100-rapists-receive-no-punishment

That's a pretty clear message from the judicial system that rape is not considered a crime in the way murder is. You could say the system is reluctant to convict rapists.

>21 southernbooklady:

Murder One seems to be either the death penalty or life without parole.

In my state, first degree murder is a minimum of 20 years. We have no death penalty (thank heavens!), and life without parole is reserved for murders with certain aggravating factors, such as multiple murders. And the point is that for every crime, we consider the circumstances of the offense and the individual.

That link is pretty misleading, because it does not refer to "97 out of 100 convicted rapists". They are including alleged rapists in cases that are never reported to police and cases where no arrest or conviction occurs. (BTW, it also doesn't include a definition of "rape", a term no longer generally used in the statutes.*)

*My state uses "aggravated criminal sexual assault" (6-30 years, +10 if there's a weapon other than a firearm, +15 if there's a firearm, +20 if the firearm is discharged, +25 if the firearm is discharged and great bodily harm results) and "criminal sexual assault", "criminal sexual abuse" and "aggravated criminal sexual abuse". The various definitions are lengthy and complicated, so I won't write a long screed. Anyone interested in more specifics can read the statute here.

>22 lilithcat: it does not refer to "97 out of 100 convicted rapists". They are including alleged rapists in cases that are never reported to police and cases where no arrest or conviction occurs.

But this is just the point I'm trying to make. As a culture, we are horrified by murder. We seem to universally recognize the heinousness of the act, and our energies are poured into holding perpetrators as accountable as possible.

Nothing like that exists for the horror of sexual assault. Culturally, we seem unsure if it is even a crime in many cases. If we regarded sexual assault with the same seriousness that we regarded rape, then

1) more cases would be reported
2) those cases would be investigated more energetically
3) presumably the conviction rates would go up, and the sentences served would become more severe.

Instead, we put victims of sexual assault through a terrible humiliating ordeal where we question their motives, their behavior, their integrity.

In effect, we tell them that getting falling down drunk at a frat party is a rape-able offence, when in fact any time consent is absent, the sex is an assault.

>23 southernbooklady:

But in cases of murder, the authorities tend to know that there's been a murder. The finding of a body with a bullet through the head is fairly clear. But sexual assault (like robbery, burglary, and other such offenses) will not be known to the authorities unless someone tells them about it. We cannot expect law enforcement to investigate a crime of which they are not aware.

My experience in the criminal justice system is that when a sexual assault case is reported, the police are just as anxious and concerned to solve that case as they are any other.

Instead, we put victims of sexual assault through a terrible humiliating ordeal where we question their motives, their behavior, their integrity.

Generally speaking, when a case, any case, depends on the credibility of the witnesses, their "motives . . . behavior . . . integrity" will be questioned. They should be; they must be. That's how we determine whether someone is speaking the truth.

If we regarded sexual assault with the same seriousness that we regarded rape . . .

I'm not sure what distinction you are making between "sexual assault" and "rape". Are you defining each differently?

>24 lilithcat: If we regarded sexual assault with the same seriousness that we regarded rape . . .


sorry, I mean "murder." typing too fast.

Every law enforcement officer I have ever met has been stellar, and in the one time I was called as a witness in a rape case, I have to say that everyone I dealt with, everyone my friend dealt with, did everything they could to ease the process at every stage, and to keep the humiliation at a minimum. It's not a question of law enforcement people not caring.

Consider what things would look like if, say, legally when you are too drunk to drive, then you are too drunk to consent to have sex. If it were a legal impossibility to consent when your blood alcohol level passes a certain point, in the same way statutory rape is a given if one of the partners is under 16.

That would be an example of the law recognizing the importance of consent. It would also mean that anytime someone had sex while drunk, or with someone who was drunk, they were automatically guilty of sexual assault. Boy would that put a damper on the frat party.

But we don't want laws like that because, when it comes right down to it, we don't want to think about the fact that drunk sex is sex without consent. In effect, we don't want to be banned from having sex with drunk partners. What does that say about us as a society? It's pretty ugly.

>25 southernbooklady:

Consider what things would look like if, say, legally when you are too drunk to drive, then you are too drunk to consent to have sex. If it were a legal impossibility to consent when your blood alcohol level passes a certain point, in the same way statutory rape is a given if one of the partners is under 16. . . .But we don't want laws like that

We not only want them, we have them. Once again, I can only refer to the laws in my state. Here, if a person is unable to give knowing consent (intoxication would be one of the possible reasons), then, depending on the nature of the act (whether or not there was penetration), the act would be either criminal sexual assault or criminal sexual abuse.

I would not encourage reliance on a specific blood alcohol level. With DUI cases, of course, the defendant is generally arrested at the time of the offense and the test given shortly thereafter. But in the "frat party" case, the complaint is not usually made in sufficient proximity to the event for a test to tell you what the complainant's BAC was. She might have been a .15 when the act occurred, but a .05 (or even stone cold sober) when reporting it.

It would also mean that anytime someone had sex while drunk, or with someone who was drunk, they were automatically guilty of sexual assault.

What do you do if they were both drunk? Are they both guilty? Or both victims?

>26 lilithcat: What do you do if they were both drunk? Are they both guilty? Or both victims?


Yes and yes. In a culture that valued consent, drunk sex would appall us. Even the idea of doing something to someone without their consent would squick us out.

But instead, we live in a culture that thinks drunks -- especially drunk women -- are "asking for it."

In the case of the Stanford rapist, he was caught sexually assaulting an unconscious, unresponsive woman behind a dumpster. In what universe is that just a blip on someone's moral radar?

>27 southernbooklady:

But if it's "yes and yes", do they both go to jail? Do they both walk?

In a culture that valued consent, drunk sex would appall us.

But that raises the question of whether everything that appalls us should be a crime, particularly in a situation where both parties are victims and perpetrators. That's the same problem I have with statutory rape cases where both parties are under the age of consent. Here, if two 15-year-olds have consensual (in the actual, not legal, sense of the word) sexual relations, they could, theoretically, both be charged with a crime that would require them to register as sex offenders. I find that appalling.

we live in a culture that thinks drunks -- especially drunk women -- are "asking for it."

I completely agree that drunks - male or female - are not "asking for it" simply because they are drunk. Intoxication can, however, lead to loss of inhibition and subsequent literal "asking for it".

None of this, of course, relates to the facts in the Stanford case, which are certainly not a "blip". This wasn't a "they were both drunk" case. She was drunk to the point of unconsciousness and blacked out -- she literally had no memory of what happened.

>28 lilithcat: But that raises the question of whether everything that appalls us should be a crime, particularly in a situation where both parties are victims and perpetrators.

Of course. Not so long ago most Americans would have said they found homosexual sex appalling...and it was a crime. Gradually, we revised our opinions to the point where it was no longer a crime, and then no longer appalling, and then recognized by the state. The key to the transition here is an expanded understanding of the nature of normal human sexuality, of the integrity of the person, and of the importance and centrality of consent.

If we valued consent with the same force of conviction that we have for the value of a person's life, then those values would become ingrained in our justice system, and would presumably lead to laws and social practices that could take into account both drunk couple getting it on after downing a two bottles of wine on their anniversary, and the college kid humping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. And it would come down on the latter like ten tons of bricks.

And sexual assault would presumably no longer be something so common one out of six women would have direct experience of it.

>29 southernbooklady:

I agree that so much of this comes down to societal attitudes. I do think they are changing. The whole discussion of date rape, frat party rape, what constitutes consent, etc. is a discussion that wasn't even on the radar as recently as five or ten years ago. It certainly wasn't on the radar when I was in college (of course, that was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth . . .).

I admit to some ambivalence. There's no question that the law is often ahead of social mores, and the existence of laws can result in attitudinal change. While race relations in this country now are nothing to brag about, they are light years ahead of what they were in the days before Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act. On the other hand, for a long time we have criminalized behavior that probably ought not to be (those consenting boyfriends and girlfriends, for instance), and imposed draconian sentences for all sorts of offenses. We do seem to be moving away from that, but that change is still a hard sell; politicians are still afraid of being labeled "soft on crime".

I agree that so much of this comes down to societal attitudes.

I think that this might be a good chunk of what is triggering my aphasia. And the three major conversations occurring in the group (Emotional labor, new posting protocols and this discussion) all deal specifically with how one negotiate boundaries. Or where acceptable boundaries lie.

The recurring metaphor in my head seems to center around operating systems. If a culture were an operating system, can a person (computer) be held accountable for the code (software/culture) that was installed (the education they did or didn't receive growing up).

As a society, I think we're much more ambivalent and ambiguous about "rape" than we would ever admit.

I've never met anyone that thinks they're anything but stridently opposed to the concept.

Yet, it's something that seems to occur with stunning regularity.

>31 Jesse_wiedinmyer:

I've never met anyone that thinks they're anything but stridently opposed to the concept.

If memory serves, there's at least one study of college men that shows some great portion of them would commit rape if they knew they could get away with it.

Yet, it's something that seems to occur with stunning regularity.

It happens with stunning regularity because we live in a world that despises women. It's not a question merely of one individual will, but of myriad circumstances that have enabled, encouraged, made possible the event. It happens because "it can". It's only since, what, the nineties? that all US states even recognised marital rape. For instance.

Recognised is an interesting choice of verb.

>31 Jesse_wiedinmyer:


As a society, I think we're much more ambivalent and ambiguous about "rape" than we would ever admit.

I've never met anyone that thinks they're anything but stridently opposed to the concept.

Yet, it's something that seems to occur with stunning regularity.

I think a good bit of this comes down to definitions. I don't know of anyone who would deny that Mr. Stranger Danger jumping out of the bushes and forcing a woman to have sexual relations with him was raping her. It's the edge cases that are a problem. The drunken frat boy who has sex with the drunken frat girl. The couple that have been engaging in sexual relations for months, and in the middle of the act one suddenly says "I don't want to do that". The 16-year-old who has sex with another 16-year-old.

The ends of the spectrum are easy. It's what's in the middle that's difficult.

>32 LolaWalser:, >33 Jesse_wiedinmyer:

Recognized in law. That goes back to the idea that, legally, and man and his wife were one person. Well, you can't rape yourself!

>36 lilithcat:

So killing your husband was just an amputation?

>37 Jesse_wiedinmyer:

I like that idea!

>34 lilithcat: I don't know of anyone who would deny that Mr. Stranger Danger jumping out of the bushes and forcing a woman to have sexual relations with him was raping her. It's the edge cases that are a problem.

And yet, most assaults are not strangers at all, but people known to the victim - spouses, ex spouses, friends, acquaintances --- in other words, people who we've already acclimated into our lives. Who are presumably "safe."

This makes sense, since it the people we know that have the most access to us, and they are the ones we're most likely to let our guard down with. I think about 20% of sexual assaults are committed by strangers. Which means those "edge cases" you are talking about are part of the great big bulge at the center of the bell curve. And you're right, people don't want to call those cases "rape" because that would mean facing up to the reality that our society actually protects rapists.

Would something like continuing to sleep with a spouse (who you assure of your monogamous behavior) while having an affair then constitute rape?

What I find more telling is not the letters from those directly involved, but the letters the judge received in defense of Brock Turner.

This is completely different from a woman getting kidnapped and raped as she is walking to her car in a parking lot. That is a rapist. These are not rapists.

...where do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campuses isn’t always because people are rapists.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/07/stanford-sexual-assault-letters-b...

We're so committed to the idea that a rapist is a scary stranger who lurks behind bushes (and not dumpsters) that we don't recognize rape as rape when the perpetrator doesn't look the part.

Jon Krakauer's book, Missoula, is a good starting point in changing how we define the word "rapist."

This piece talks about how we are normalized to accept violence against women:

We can see that norms and expectations of marginalized people’s behavior — politeness, say, or servility — are strategies of normalizing violence. And they are strategies that are often violently enforced. If we are too polite to yell at subway masturbators, society does not have to deal with male privilege.

http://feministing.com/2016/06/07/smile-sweetly-dont-shout/

>40 Jesse_wiedinmyer:

No.

>43 lilithcat:

Why not?

And this is not an attempt to be flip nor an attempt at reductio ad absurdum.

>44 Jesse_wiedinmyer: Like most things, I expect there are a range of situations applicable here. Deceit and manipulation are popular tools precisely because we don't value consent as much as we should.

Prioritizing consent means acknowledging a person's right and capability to make their own decision about their body. That facility for self determination probably hasn't disappeared just because a person didn't know about the affair when they had sex with their husband (or, in my case, girlfriend).

But if the ability and freedom to choose to have sex, or not, disappears -- if a person is so intimidated, so broken down, that they don't feel like they have the option to say no, then they are essentially sexual slaves, and that would be rape, even if the person obediently acquiesced to their partner's demand.

So there is no need for informed consent, simply consent.

Sorry, I'm just working though logic spaces in my head.

If you value consent, it would follow that you would value informed consent. As it stands, we treat consent like a loop hole for rapists -- witness Mr. I had sex with a drunk girl behind a dumpster but I could tell she wanted it because she rubbed my back. "She wanted it" is the first and best defense every rapist uses, and the legal system is designed to take that at face value until it can be proved otherwise.

>34 lilithcat:

The couple that have been engaging in sexual relations for months, and in the middle of the act one suddenly says "I don't want to do that".

This doesn't seem ambiguous to me. That's a "no"; meaning stop doing whatever you're doing. Same as you would if a fire broke out under the bed.

This: https://plus.google.com/u/0/113785320591441846925/posts/9iCesvQFgss

>49 LolaWalser:

Agreed.

>50 sturlington:

The Orwell quote in the comments got my attention.

>50 sturlington:

Yes. Drunkenness doesn't make someone act "atypically", it lowers the inhibitions for acting as they are already primed to.

If some drunk disgusting little shit fucks an unconscious woman it's not because he's had a tumbler of Dr. Jekyll's serum, it's because he, even when sober, doesn't think of women as he thinks of himself, that they are people. To this disgusting little shit (and his equally disgusting father) a woman is meat to use, not a person. (The father, at least, was sober when he wrote that letter, was he not?)

All drink did is reveal this. That's what "in vino veritas" means.

>20 lilithcat:

What sentence should the former Stanford swimmer have gotten?

"The federal sentencing guidelines also provide a useful contrast to the reasons reportedly given by the California judge for giving the swimmer such a lenient sentence. For example, the judge noted that the offense was the swimmer’s first. But the sentencing guideline just discussed recommends a 97-month minimum sentence for a first-time offender. The judge also noted that the defendant was intoxicated at the time of the crime. But here again, the federal sentencing guidelines take a different approach. The guidelines (Section 5K2.13) exclude a downward departure where 'the significantly reduced mental capacity was caused by the voluntary use of drugs or other intoxicants.'" (Paul Cassell)

Federal sentencing guidelines have nothing to do with state law.

>50 sturlington:, >52 elenchus: Also in the comments, for those who prefer visuals rather than reading, easy to understand pie charts:
http://www.sbs.com.au/comedy/article/2016/06/08/breakdown-victim-blaming-using-p...

>55 lilithcat: Federal sentencing guidelines have nothing to do with state law.


I don't understand your point.

>34 lilithcat:

>49 LolaWalser:

Lilith, would you grant that?

>18 .Monkey.:

Sorry for the delayed response, but all of it. Or mayhap the aphasic response is induced because I don't know what the specific trigger actually is.

There's a really good analysis of the use of leading questions during cross exanimation in today's Debuk blog -- it's inspired by the victim's letter in the Standford rapist case:

https://debuk.wordpress.com/2016/06/12/leading-questions/

It questions the usefulness of using leading questions in cross examination, and points to a study that suggests this kind of questioning leads to people giving less accurate answers.

There’s nothing rigorous about questioning people in a way that confuses them and prompts them to make mistakes. But if we’re interested in the specific issues that arise in sexual assault trials, it seems clear that we can’t just focus on the linguistic form of the questions put to complainants. Challenging the assumptions of a particular question isn’t easy; but what’s even harder is challenging the more general assumption that women are ‘liars and fantasists’.

There's a pretty good commentary over at www.swimmingworldmagazine.com, written by Caroline Kosciusko. I too wish everybody would stop identifying this criminal as a swimmer. For one thing, it's irrelevant; for another--you know what? He's not going to be a competitive swimmer any more at all, because he's just gotten himself banned for life.

Apparently one of the jurors has spoken about the judge's sentence:

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/06/brock-turner-juror-pens-angry-letter-to-judge.ht...

>63 Taphophile13: Wow! I'm so grateful both the victim and now this juror have the courage to speak out.

>64 sturlington: I came across something the other day about potential jurors protesting and refusing to participate in trials that judge is supposed to hear. I'll post the link if I find it again.

Here it is:
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/breaking-news/ci_29997199/judge-aaron-persky-prospec...

Judge in Stanford rapist case removed from another sexual assault case.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/14/482103187/california-judge-in-...

>66 sturlington: Makes you wonder if there isn't something else going on behind the scenes with that judge.

I think you are merely missing the cultural/empathy gap.

>67 southernbooklady: I'm not sure we should interpret a pattern yet. It sounds to me like in this case, the DA (rightly) determined that a change of judge was necessary for a sexual assault victim to get justice and wrote a motion to that effect. This is always an option for DAs to exercise. My understanding is that it rarely happens, but it always can. I'd be pleased to see it get momentum so that this judge never hears a sexual violence case again, because at that point there may be real consequences or removal from the bench. But I don't have my hopes up yet.

Does anyone remember the judge (this was in the US) who "played with himself"--I think he had an actual sex toy or something--while in court? Older or middle-aged man, nothing especially alarming in the exterior. Some ten years ago or so.

I can't remember what was his problem... Boredom?

Judge Donald Thompson. After release from prison, he took to stalking ex-girlfriends.

Omg, he ended in prison! I figured a hefty fine and no job ever again... Interesting creatures, them judges...

There was a case in Ann Arbor about forty years ago: sixteen-year-old rapist given six months' probation by a judge who not only blamed the victim, but all the young women of Ann Arbor, for dressing provocatively. The judge (Archie something) lost his job in a recall election.

I still can't comprehend this notion of blaming the victim.

I still can't comprehend this notion of blaming the victim.
It's a lot easier than admitting there is a massive problem with a society that has this unending issue. Clearly the problem isn't us, it's them! ...not to mention that it means people can keep on doing it, because clearly they are not the concern, it's those damn flaky girls who just keep asking for it and then trying to say they don't want it after all! :/

>73 orsolina:
Forty years ago???

Forty years and nothing has changed?

Oh good lord. And to think I hear daily how we don't need feminism anymore.

The judge was, after all, removed from the bench. So there were a lot of people in Ann Arbor who did not believe in blaming the victim.

Members of Stanford swim team may have been instructed not to speak out about Turner's creepy, sexist behavior toward team members:

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/stanford-tried-to-silence-womens-creepy-stories-...

Not at surprised. "men" such as Turner tend to be habitual offenders. Maybe it's the first time he actually committed a serious crime, but the information that has come out so far shows him as a ticking bomb.

Another eloquent statement by a victim:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/09/02/birth_of_a_nation_star_gabrielle...

Link to longer version:

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-union-nate-parker-birth-nation-rape-a...

>79 Taphophile13: And now I love Gabrielle Union more.

Incidentally Brock Turner is being released, three months being long enough to suffer for his youthful indiscretion. Now is not the time to compare his sentence to the many incarcerated for decades for drug violations, and it's certainly not the time to mention that his victim still has to live with what he did to her, while he's back in his comfortable home.