DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Dad defends Stanford Sex Offender

I'm really surprised that this is not already being discussed here.
There is more to the story, but it has tweets and other things that would mess with the formatting.

Dad defends sex offender

Public outrage over the lenient sentencing of a star Stanford swimmer convicted of sexual assault has been compounded by a controversial letter written by the athlete’s father.

Brock Turner was convicted in March of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman at a fraternity party in January 2015 at the elite university. He faced up to 14 years in prison. Prosecutors asked for six.

Instead, Turner received only six months in jail and three years of probation after a judge worried that a stiffer sentence would have a “severe impact” on the 20-year-old.

The light sentence drew harsh criticism from prosecutors and advocates and prompted widespread fury on social media.

That fury intensified Sunday as critics slammed a letter written by Turner’s father as oblivious, “tone-deaf” and “impossibly offensive.”

“His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve,” Dan A. Turner wrote in a letter arguing that his son should receive probation, not jail time. “That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.”

“He will never be his happy go lucky self with that easy going personality and welcoming smile,” the letter says, noting that the former Olympic hopeful is now a registered sex offender.

In an interview with The Washington Post early Monday morning, Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen confirmed that the letter had been submitted to the court before Turner’s sentencing last week and criticized the letter for reducing a brutal sexual assault to “20 minutes of action.” He also slammed Turner and his father for refusing to own up to the crime.

“To this day, the defendant denies what he did,” Rosen said, adding that Turner “preyed upon” his victim and displayed violence.

Brock Turner’s attorney did not return The Post’s request for comment regarding Dan Turner’s letter.

The controversial letter emerged three days after prosecutors released another letter, this one written by the victim, who has not been named.

The two letters stand in stark contrast. While Dan Turner’s has been described as myopic, the victim’s has been called powerful and moving.

The victim’s letter begins by bluntly addressing her attacker.

“You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me, and that’s why we’re here today,” she read in court. She then described how she decided to attend a party so she could spend time with her younger sister.

“I made silly faces, let my guard down, and drank liquor too fast not factoring in that my tolerance had significantly lowered since college,” she said. “The next thing I remember I was in a gurney in a hallway. I had dried blood and bandages on the backs of my hands and elbow. I thought maybe I had fallen and was in an admin office on campus. I was very calm and wondering where my sister was. A deputy explained I had been assaulted. I still remained calm, assured he was speaking to the wrong person. I knew no one at this party. When I was finally allowed to use the restroom, I pulled down the hospital pants they had given me, went to pull down my underwear, and felt nothing.”

She described in painful detail how the hospital staff documented her assault with probes and swabs, “shots, pills, had a nikon pointed right into my spread legs. …

“I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital with everything else.”

She described Turner as a predator picking off “the wounded antelope of the herd, completely alone and vulnerable, physically unable to fend for myself. …”

She added: “Sometimes I think, if I hadn’t gone, then this never would’ve happened. But then I realized, it would have happened, just to somebody else. You were about to enter four years of access to drunk girls and parties, and if this is the foot you started off on, then it is right you did not continue.”

“You do not get to shrug your shoulders and be confused anymore,” she said of his conviction. “You have been convicted of violating me with malicious intent, and all you can admit to is consuming alcohol. Do not talk about the sad way your life was upturned because alcohol made you do bad things.”

And yet, that is essentially the tone of Turner’s father’s letter.

Dan Turner’s letter begins with brisk reference to the sexual assault.

“First of all, let me say that Brock is absolutely devastated by the events of January 17th and 18th 2015,” it says. “He would do anything to turn back the hands of time and have that night to do over again. In many one-on-one conversations with Brock since that day, I can tell you that he is truly sorry for what occurred that night and for all the pain and suffering that it has caused for all those involved and impacted by that night. He has expressed true remorse for his actions on that night.”

Rosen said, however, that Brock Turner never accepted responsibility for the assault. Had he done so, prosecutors probably would have agreed to a sentence of less than six years.

Dan Turner’s letter then launches into a description of his son’s “easygoing personality” and the “inner strength” that made him such a good swimmer.

Dan Turner said he and his son were “totally in awe” of Stanford’s campus, and noted with pride the school’s 4 percent acceptance rate.

Turner then described his son not as a sexual predator, but as a victim.

“He excelled in school that quarter earning the top GPA for all freshmen on the swim team,” the father wrote in his letter. “What we didn’t realize was the extent to which Brock was struggling being so far from home. … When Brock was home during the Christmas break, he broke down and told us how much he was struggling to fit in socially.

“In hindsight, it’s clear that Brock was desperately trying to fit in at Stanford and fell into the culture of alcohol consumption and partying,” Dan Turner concluded. “This culture was modeled by many of the upperclassmen on the swim team and played a role in the events of Jan 17th and 18th 2015.”

During the trial, prosecutors had argued that Brock Turner was part of a bigger problem.

“He may not look like a rapist, but he is the … face of campus sexual assault,” Deputy District Attorney Alaleh Kianerci told the jury, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

In his letter to the judge, however, Dan Turner appeared to be flipping this script, using the pervasiveness of the problem as a shield to hide his son’s personal responsibility.

The Internet was not having it.

i saw the story yesterday. i didn't bother posting it after i saw what the judge had said about "severe impact".

this is just another affluenza case, like all the other crap i see from perfect suburbia living(just a general hit. not aimed at anything specific)

Yeah, the sentence was really a bunch of bull, but I can't believe how callus the father was by saying "It was only 20 minutes of action." First of all, if that was my daughter that 20 minutes of action might have scored your son a visit to the hospital or the morgue depending on how her dad (me) decided to handle it.
Second, if this was my son (and I love my kids dearly). I would not be making any kinds of excuses for him. He made the bed, now he must lay in it.
It's my generation's fault, Swish. We are the reason our children have no accountability and everyone gets a trophy. I..... just don't understand it...

I dunno if when it comes to these cases if it's s generation thing or an upbringing thing.

For example, for the sad to defend his kid like THAT, makes me wonder if he himself hasn't done some questionable things in his past.

My parents is in your generation, and they would've let me burn at the stake if I ever did something disgusting as this.

I'm sure a lot of you guys on this board would've let your kids fry, as well. Most people just don't view this as acceptable....

But this dad seems to not think it was that big of a deal. I gotta wonder what he's done in his life that either got swept under the rug, or was never found out in the first place.

Good point, Swish! If I had done something like this when I was his age, I would have asked for the judge to give me the longest sentence possible. The wrath of my dad was way scarier than jail could have possibly been.

I'm trying to raise my kids right. My daughter played on a soccer team that was 1-9 in the regular season, but happened to win two straight games to win the "championship." After the game, my daughter handed her first place trophy to my son and said "Here, Paidin, you can have this since your team didn't win and my team doesn't deserve it."

This is just sick beyond reason. Instead of helping the poor girl and get her home safely he takes advantage of her behind a trash dumpster.

Hey daddy, quit pleading for the slime ball you raised and pay for the psychological treatments this girl is going to need to get over having known your slime ball son.

That's the way America is though......

If that was a poor uneducated kid, raping a stanford student behind a dumpster, 6 years, easy.

Instead, this kid's able to get multiple lawyers, and get himself 6 months, which his idiot father said was too much.


I do see that there have been efforts to recall this judge. I'm sure we'll get pictures of the father and judge in no time, and they'll see that their lives have been ruined as well. He's concerned that his kid will be labeled a sex offender for the rest of his life (rightfully so), well this judge and father are going to have their picture posted on millions of facebooks around the world, and there will be no hiding from that either

I always wonder, how many millionaires have gotten the death penalty?

Because, in America, the real question is, what kind of justice can you pay for?
--------------
EDIT:(Just looked it up, so this article from 2006 found five. This adjusts for inflation, so while these people weren't millionaires, they were at the time.

One of which was Benadict Arnold's handler, another was killed in the mid-1800's on a Naval Ship for forming a mutiny which the Captain didn't want to keep him alive to risk any more problems(and wasn't technically a millionaire, just the son of the Secretary of War).

The next two were crime bosses. Louis "Lepke" Buchalter in 1944 and drug kingpin Juan Garza in 2001.

The final one, Dr. John Webster in the mid-1800's who squandered his money, but had a legal defense organized by his friends. Unfortunately, with the body parts of the person he murdered found in his lab, Webster could only get a court appointed attorney because nobody would represent him, and he was executed. Therefore, I'm not sure he counts


So the article found five.



Point being, if you get arrested for anything, you're far better off rich than poor. Just ask the Governor of Connecticut's Son who received probation for going to buy marijuana at some kid's home and robbing him (while armed). This being his second drug arrest that he put in no jail time for (one previous for possession with intent to distribute of something stronger than weed).

But that doesn't matter. Never any jail time for the Governor's son of course.

Meanwhile, kids in the projects do the same thing (first offense) and receive 8 years in the slammer, easy.

Gotta love our justice system

Sad, disgusting, revolting, and not at all surprising, given the increasingly sinful nature of this world in which we all live. We accept sins, then more sins, then still more sins as natural, normal, and even desirable ...... and then we're surprised when sin is accepted and minimized.

Not surprising at all.

Well Petey, most of us know there's Just Us for a minority of people in our country and Justice for everyone else.

Aint that the truth. It's just so frustrating because it's clearly right in front of us to see, and nothing is ever done.

I guess that's just the way it's always been

Really? I'm not. Just the same way I'm not surprised that this thread will get a few responses, some blaming lack of religion or the rapist being rich, etc. While there may be some truth in what some men and a few women might post along those lines, the real reason will, as usual, get swept under the rug.

Take a look a look at the thread about bathrooms that was locked at 10 or so pages as men feigned outrage and demanded that girls be protected by all the crazy men outfitted in dresses who will now defile their girls and prey on them at will!! Then look at this thread where a young woman is raped, and then raped again by the courts, and then tossed aside as 20 minutes of action. Barely a peep. Because the protection of women or girls isn't the reason for the outrage. They will keep telling you it is, but they are lying. It's quite evident what they are really afraid of or pissed off about.

Sexism in this country is still alive and well and more tolerated than most instances of discrimination.

At least no one started victim blaming. I think that's progress for the board.

I pretty much thought rape was commonly known as a bad thing. I still think it is.

Would I need to register my grief, anger, ire, etc about it, here, for one to believe I think the sentence was pathetic? If so, pardon me for not having done so already.

Good post - I remember getting caught shoplifting and my dad walking into the store's office and the officer asked my dad what he thought.. My dad looked at me and said 'I think you should take him to juvie'... I was 13... And my dad was dead serious... And that stuck with me more than anything else that they punished me with. Thankfully they didn't press charges... Though I spent the entire summer in my room or working for my grandfather on his farm (which wasn't really punishment)

I read the story and was appalled at the sentencing. I understand the dad wanting to fight for his son but that 20 min line was disgusting

Seems the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree..... I am absolutely beyond sickened now!!

Brock Turner blames assault on Stanford

The night of January 17th changed my life and the lives of everyone involved forever. I can never go back to being the person I was before that day. I am no longer a swimmer, a student, a resident of California, or the product of the work that I put in to accomplish the goals that I set out in the first nineteen years of my life. Not only have I altered my life, but I’ve also changed [redacted] and her family’s life. I am the sole proprietor of what happened on the night that these people’s lives were changed forever. I would give anything to change what happened that night. I can never forgive myself for imposing trauma and pain on [redacted]. It debilitates me to think that my actions have caused her emotional and physical stress that is completely unwarranted and unfair. The thought of this is in my head every second of every day since this event has occurred. These ideas never leave my mind. During the day, I shake uncontrollably from the amount I torment myself by thinking about what has happened. I wish I had the ability to go back in time and never pick up a drink that night, let alone interact with [redacted]. I can barely hold a conversation with someone without having my mind drift into thinking these thoughts. They torture me. I go to sleep every night having been crippled by these thoughts to the point of exhaustion. I wake up having dreamt of these horrific events that I have caused. I am completely consumed by my poor judgement and ill thought actions. There isn’t a second that has gone by where I haven’t regretted the course of events I took on January 17th/18th. My shell and core of who I am as a person is forever broken from this. I am a changed person. At this point in my life, I never want to have a drop of alcohol again. I never want to attend a social gathering that involves alcohol or any situation where people make decisions based on the substances they have consumed. I never want to experience being in a position where it will have a negative impact on my life or someone else’s ever again. I’ve lost two jobs solely based on the reporting of my case. I wish I never was good at swimming or had the opportunity to attend Stanford, so maybe the newspapers wouldn’t want to write stories about me.

All I can do from these events moving forward is by proving to everyone who I really am as a person. I know that if I were to be placed on probation, I would be able to be a benefit to society for the rest of my life. I want to earn a college degree in any capacity that I am capable to do so. And in accomplishing this task, I can make the people around me and society better through the example I will set. I’ve been a goal oriented person since my start as a swimmer. I want to take what I can from who I was before this situation happened and use it to the best of my abilities moving forward. I know I can show people who were like me the dangers of assuming what college life can be like without thinking about the consequences one would potentially have to make if one were to make the same decisions that I made. I want to show that people’s lives can be destroyed by drinking and making poor decisions while doing so. One needs to recognize the influence that peer pressure and the attitude of having to fit in can have on someone. One decision has the potential to change your entire life. I know I can impact and change people’s attitudes towards the culture surrounded by binge drinking and sexual promiscuity that protrudes through what people think is at the core of being a college student. I want to demolish the assumption that drinking and partying are what make up a college lifestyle I made a mistake, I drank too much, and my decisions hurt someone. But I never ever meant to intentionally hurt [redacted]. My poor decision making and excessive drinking hurt someone that night and I wish I could just take it all back.

If I were to be placed on probation, I can positively say, without a single shred of doubt in my mind, that I would never have any problem with law enforcement. Before this happened, I never had any trouble with law enforcement and I plan on maintaining that. I’ve been shattered by the party culture and risk taking behavior that I briefly experienced in my four months at school. I’ve lost my chance to swim in the Olympics. I’ve lost my ability to obtain a Stanford degree. I’ve lost employment opportunity, my reputation and most of all, my life. These things force me to never want to put myself in a position where I have to sacrifice everything. I would make it my life’s mission to show everyone that I can contribute and be a positive influence on society from these events that have transpired. I will never put myself through an event where it will give someone the ability to question whether I really can be a betterment to society. I want no one, male or female, to have to experience the destructive consequences of making decisions while under the influence of alcohol. I want to be a voice of reason in a time where people’s attitudes and preconceived notions about partying and drinking have already been established. I want to let young people now, as I did not, that things can go from fun to ruined in just one night.

This dude will have a hard time setting foot out in public. The nation seemingly knows his face, actions and the result. Hopefully some guy can take him behind a dumpster and bloody him up, hurt him real bad and not think twice about it.

He may have jipped the justice system, but there's no jipping reality. I hope his day comes, and it takes exactly 20 minutes of a good ole beat down.

Stay behind the curtains of society scum bag.

And now for something completely different.

http://nbc4i.com/2016/06/08/witches-gather-online-to-hex-brock-turner/

STANFORD, CA (WCMH) – A group of witches unsatisfied with the sentence of former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner gathered Tuesday for a mass ‘hexing.’

The organizer invited more than a thousand people to gather at home altars and recite the following:

“
Brock Allen Turner we hex you.
You will be impotent
You will know constant pain of pine needles in your guts
Food will bring you no sustenance
In water, your lungs will fail you
Sleep will only bring nightmares
Shame will be your mantle.
You will meet justice.

My witchcraft is strong. Our witchcraft is powerful. The spell will work. So Mote it be.

Threads grow to 10 pages because there is something controversial to discuss... there is little controversy in this.. the kid is a punk, he deserved to rot a lot longer than 6 months.. and the father, while I understand the parental instinct to want to defend your child and to want them to a have a productive life after their punishment is over.. what he did was in horrible taste and very ill-conceived.

Here, you want me to try to get this thread to 10 pages? You got it.. let's talk about campus rapes and the 10 college campuses with the most reported rapes in the United States:

1. Brown University
2. University of Connecticut
3. Dartmouth College
4. Wesleyan College
5. University of Virginia
6. Harvard
7. University of North Carolina - Charlotte
8. Rutgers - New Brunswick
9. University of Vermont
10. Stanford

Now if you adjust for size and do rapes per 1000 students, it looks like this

1. Reed College (Oregon)
2. Wesleyan College (Georgia)
3. Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania)
4. Knox College (Illinois)
5. Williams College (Massachusetts)
6. Ponoma College (California)
7. Bowdoin College (Maine)
8. Gallaudet University (Washington, DC)
9. Beloit College (Wisconsin)
10. Dartmouth (New Hampshire)

Now people can make of those lists what they want.. but it looks like a whole lot of hoity toity high-dollar liberal colleges on those lists for the most part. Now the folks who would respond from the colleges all said the same thing, they show more because they have created an atmosphere where girls feel safe to come forward.. it happens more other places, we just get more reported because of how great we are.. now you can choose to accept that or not.

Now for reference, Reed College only has 1400 students and they reported 12.9 rapes per 1000 students.. about 800 students are female... therefore, 18 of the 800 girls on campus have claimed to be raped...

Also for the record, the article I read doesn't mention or seem to include sexual assault, it's very specific it means rape.

The Washington Post

Wow, this whole family is screwed up

So they gave him bad diaherra?

I don't get what you're posting. Are you saying wealthy schools are more susceptible to high rape numbers?

Isn't that kind of an obvious idea everybody already had?

No, I'm saying campus rape is HUGE problem beyond this one POS at Stanford or one athletic scandal at Baylor.. it's everywhere and the numbers we know about are horrible and they are probably just the tip of the iceberg of the numbers we don't know about.

But to your question.. I don't understand why it's obvious that wealthy schools are more susceptible to high rape numbers.. am I missing something? What makes that intuitive? I thought rich kids with nice cars could get laid all the time.. what am I missing?

And I thought I was pretty clear in my post, the schools who provided any quotes in the article all state that their numbers are a result of creating an openness for women to come forward and not an indication that they have more rapes than other schools. If you didn't open the link, please do, these schools are reporting incredible numbers of rapes a year (well, at least to me they are incredible)..

Are they higher than they used to be? Are they just higher because ladies have started coming forward as opposed to just accepting it in the past?

I'm just trying to further the conversation on campus rape and I used that article as a starting point, it wasn't intended to be a conclusion or an accusation about anything or anybody..

Well, I dunno about colleges, but as the SHARP rep for my unit, I can tell you a lot more women were coming forward when the army started drastically changing how they handle sexual rich boy thing, I dunno what the numbers are from wealthy kids to poor kids, but it does seem like the typical frat boy that has daddy paying for everything seem to be the most screwed up of kids. Talking a pure college environment standpoint.

And now we got two recent high profile cases, with this POS and the other affluenza kid in Texas getting slaps on the wrist for murdering/raping someone.

If I was a woman, I would be scared as crap to ever come out and confess to being raped, cause far too often in this country, the system and others end up trying to victim blame, and she ends up being the one more punished than the actual assaulter.

We have a problem with athletes and entitlement with regards to sexual activity. Rich or poor.

But when you see these rich kids get off like this, the problem looks 100x times worse.

From what I read, his willy may as well drop off, he's going to have intestinal cramps, never sleep, and food will never be good.

Yup...the apple did not,fall very far from the tree but no surprise here.

This is part of the problem in today's society. Many care very little for their fellow man/woman and hold their own to little or no accountability. We see it in America's classrooms on a daily basis. No surprise for most of us involved in education.

Excuses, me me me, blame everyone else and no accountability.

i find it depressing that here we are, good ole christian america, scared and want anti trans laws for bathrooms in fear that people who identify as women, they are gonna rape women....

yet here we are, a rape case getting a slap on the wrist because of the good ole boy system, since the majority of rapes happen from heterosexual males.

6 months, and then got an entitled rich kid and dad.

i guess it doesn't matter who rapes the women, because justice isn't gonna get served either way. absolutely pathetic.

How in the hell did he get off this easy.

Not sure why you mentioned Christians, but this seems to be money not religion that caused this kid to get a lame sentence. Maybe you're just biased.

I find it more interesting that this judge is a democrat, an executive committee member for Support Network for Battered Women, and a winner of civil rights awards.

Swish, don't let me speak for you and feel free to correct me, but I think what Swish is saying is that the biggest opposition to this whole gender thing is coming from the "Christians" thus he used them as an example.. I doubt he's bias....

Love him to death but swish definitely has a bias. Sorry.

Yes I know he has some bias, but on this, I'm thinking it's more about the situation.

Some bias? He'd get absolutely grilled on this site if he tried to say he wasn't biased against religion in general. He's said as much himself.

I'm not sure what correlation he's trying to make with Christianity to this particular rape case. I think the judge's political affiliations have more to do with his lame sentencing than his religion (or lack thereof), which I haven't been able to find online.

Thats not really what most people are worried about.. but ok.


And good old Christian America is outraged over it. I'm not sure what you want the average person to do other than express their outrage..

Blacks are outraged because I saw a story of a black kid in Tennessee who did almost the exact same thing recently. He was drinking, girl was passed out, he took advantage of her, there was video evidence of him doing it.. and a black judge gave him like 16 years or something like that..

Women are outraged because this is totally disrespectful (I wish I could think of a more harsh term) to the victim and to women everywhere.

Christians and non-Christians are outraged because this just isn't right and I've seen petitions to have this guy recalled and all that flying around and I've signed one, not sure what good it will do but I added my name to it.

In fact about the only 3 people I'm aware of who are NOT outraged are the kid, his dad, and the judge.

What's even more messed up, as I understand it, this dad has a daughter as well. I wonder how he would feel if he was on the other end of this... I'm guessing his tune would be significantly different.

America.

Just looked up the Brooker dude and this little poster really highlights two problems. Brooker is a victim of mandatory sentencing, because of laws in Alabama that repeat felons (he committed armed robbery of a liquor store in Florida many years ago and go caught) who meet a certain criteria HAVE TO be punished by life without parole.. and he met those criteria, there was really little that a judge could do...

In the Turner case the judge had discretion to use some common sense and totally blew it.

So the system doesn't work when we make mandatory sentencing laws.. and it doesn't work when we give them the latitude to use judgement...

Either that or it does work most of the time and we hear a lot about it when it doesn't work...

Maybe if Brooker had money and his judge was an alum of his college...

Thanks D.

i'm just talking about the overall situation in this country. i just don't get it. it seems like we put more focus on things that really aren't a daily concern, yet crap like this loser seems to get away/slapped on the wrist on a daily basis.

if you're convicted of rape, child molestation or abuse, there needs to be mandatory sentencing, i don't care how much damn money you got.

but nah, we're scared about trans people raping our women? what about the straight males?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/upshot...ation.html?_r=0

here's what i'm talking about: the best estimate is that there are about 136,000 people changed their names to a gender identifying one since the start of 1936.

there isn't a good number to identify how many trans people there are in this country.

the best guess from surveys say about .3 percent, or 700k.

but you know what DOES have hard numbers? sexual assault?

at an average of 293k PER FREAKING YEAR.

anybody wanna take a stab at how many are done each year by straight males? here's at hint: choose between 98-99%, and you'll get the correct answer.

so i'm simply asking the christian community on why trans people is a big deal, but i don't see the outrage over this?

because lets be honest, trans has gotten more outrage over bathrooms and the POTENTIAL harm of women over the ACTUAL hard numbers of straight males acting like animals.

that's why i'm pissed off. we got a good old boy system of it being that if you got enough money, you can get away with anything. we got out of whack priorities in this country.

and women gotta put up with this nonsense and victim blaming, all while most men don't talk about rape on a national scale unless it's a group of people(LBGT) that they personally don't agree with.

cut it the hell out.

Maybe but under the Alabama law, the judge would have had a much harder time wiggling him out of it.

As I read the account on wiki, owning more than 2.2 pounds created the felony, his plants weight 2.8 pounds.. his attorney tried to argue that the usable amount of the plants was much less than the 2.2 pounds but owning the plant, not just the product from the plant, is what is against the law.

Keep in mind Tulsa, I'm not defending one or the other, both of them seem to suck badly.

To Tulsa:

to be fair bro, dude was already in and out of jail prior to the weed.

but the point has been made. think about other cases. the precedence has been set.

you can now go to jail longer for having joints in your pocket, domestic abuse( which could be two drunk people fighting), and a host of other crimes than if you rape a woman.

*golf clap* great job, america.