How in **** does a 2004-join-date poster not know how to link to an article?

Despite that massive wall of text, the victims letter is powerful and if you have 15 minutes today, do yourself a favor and read it.

I have never heard of truck nutz before. What kind of world are we living in?

FWIW, I'm not crazy about rape either.

I say castrate this guy and make him go to Berkeley instead.

Website: http://www.perskyforjudge.com

I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a Bachelor's Degree in International Relations and a Master's Degree in International Policy Studies. After graduation, I rode my bicycle from Palo Alto to Washington, D.C. to raise money for the Red Cross African Famine Relief Campaign.

In Washington I worked for the International Trade Administration of the United States Department of Commerce, where I investigated other countries' unfair trade practices. I returned to California to attend law school at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, where I was a member of the moot court board and also an assistant coach for the undergraduate men's lacrosse team.

After law school, I worked for the judges of the Superior Court of San Francisco for one year, researching civil and criminal legal issues. I then joined the law firm of Morrison & Foerster as a litigation associate, gaining substantial experience in civil cases. The firm sent me to Tokyo, Japan to work for a Japanese client for one year. I studied Japanese and later won a prestigious speech contest for non-native Japanese speakers, which was nationally televised in Japan.

A year after returning from Japan, I became a criminal prosecutor for the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office, where I now prosecute sex crimes and hate crimes. I focus on the prosecution of sexually violent predators, working to keep the most dangerous sex offenders in custody in mental hospitals. I am also an Executive Committee member of the Santa Clara County Network for a Hate-Free Community, where I helped create a county-wide law enforcement policy on hate crimes. In addition, I serve as an Executive Committee Member of the Support Network for Battered Women.

Defendant obviously has incentive to lie and say that he was in control so that his testimony has more weight, but what are the probable facts of the real case? Did he drink to the point of blacking out? He ran from the bikers so maybe he knew what he was doing / wasn't blacked out. Who is the witness (not the bikers, the other one) and what is the personal relationship between the witness and the defendant? I just grunched the details but I want to know basically was it likely this guy had mens rea (he left the bar or party or whatever fully intending to rape her) or not. From initial account it seems that way, which if true is pretty sick to only get 6mo, but I haven't seen all the facts. Also we actually know very little from the letter because she says she doesn't remember anything. Apparently his BAC was 2x legal, (and hers was 3x and she doesn't remember.) If for example he was blacked out, then I think a light sentence (but still more than 6mo) is ultimately correct even though it obviously sucks for the victim. From these facts I think he was not blacked out, but just 'pretty drunk' and more importantly still had full intent to rape.

Btw we basically can't trust any of the defendant's testimony unfortunately because he made it with full prior knowledge of the situation and the situation is ripe to be exploited. Basically since he knew that the victim doesn't remember anything and there are virtually no witnesses, he can basically claim whatever he wants. From Bayes theorem the chance that he bluffed the testimony is extremely high because he (read: his lawyer) would always bluff this spot (near 0 calling range) and the natural chance he "has it" (actually she consented etc.) is very slim.

I think it's safe to say that the rapist had mens rea.

If you were betting that ikes would be the first one in here to brosplain this incident, you just got runner-runnered

Great the latest thing that the internet will rage about for a week and then forget a week later when they find something else to faux rage over.

Don't think the rage is faux. Think the rage is over a judge limiting the sentence because of the effect it would have on the accused's life instead of taking into consideration the effect the accused had on the victim's life.

If he was sentenced to 3 years then it would be "just" because then in some bizarre way it balances out what happened to the girl? Like she would feel better and her life would be better because he spent more time in prison?

**I'm not defending the sentence or the apparent bizarre statements by the judge.

Wut? I said multiple times that the defendant should get a harder punishment...

the dude's life is over. he's not going to get a college degree anytime soon. his swimming is done. he'll probably never have a normal job, or live in a normal neighborhood. every time his name is googled this will come up. i get it devastated her life in a lot of ways but he essentially ruined his own too. its just a tragedy all around and i dont think putting him in prison for 5 years changes anything.

what if he just woulda pled guilty from the start? and not put her through any of this? would 6 months be ok in that case? 1 year? 5 years? what is reasonable?

It's the ** bit that is being criticized.

Debate/legislation about appropriate use of prison is one thing but we then expect judges to apply it reasonably. What's the standard?

I don't know what's appropriate but making the victim go through the court case in the manner he did was another crime (I may be using the word loosely). My view on prison is it has to deter, rehabilitate or protect, given that it's then mostly over to the experts to work out what works.

That's the issue with any judicial system. We give judges the power to use some judgement in sentencing because each case really is different. Sometimes that means that people receive lighter or harsher sentences than what is expected by the public.

But without that then you get mandatory terms which usually have very harsh minimums. That's not a very good answer either.

The judicial system is hardly perfect and that why most judges are elected. If this judge really does have poor judgement then the people CA can correct that.

I don't know about California, but here in Alabama we have elected judges. That means they are incredibly incentivized to be "tough on crime" in most cases. It's probably the biggest single thing wrong with our state justice system.

the judge in this case was a former sex crimes prosecutor. i'd like to hear his rationale for 6 months

where is ikes to weigh in on this anyways

Yeah I mean this is obviously a terribly light sentence for all the wrong reasons but I don't think too-light sentencing is really that much of a problem compared to the others in the judicial system.

Without eye-witnesses testimony, this is a post in the drunk/rape thread where someone is complaining that the guy is unfairly losing his scholarship.

Is sociopathy heritable? That letter from the father is just deranged, getting into details on snack foods while hiding the victim as the implied object of "20 minutes of action." Wow.

No.

None of anything you mentioned in the first paragraph has anything to do w/the criminal justice system though. Those are not consequences of a crime against another person. He raped her, he deserves to be punished through the criminal justice system accordingly.

His shame he has to bear for his crime isn't even in the same universe to the pain and suffering the victim has from being raped.

And what do you expect the parents to say, I mean it's their child. Like, sure maybe this is why he committed such a heinous act because his parents didn't teach him boundaries well, but it's not common for parents to just flip the switch after a jury convicts someone. People get murdered and their parents are on tv saying, "no way my little Johnny did it!" every single day. This isn't a new trend or something.

Jefferey Dahmer's parents are still convinced to this day that he's innocent lol. Some serious cognitive illusions and dissonance going on obviously, but it would be a hard concept to just go "oh okay, I guess so" that a loved one did something so awful and atrocious to another human being.

I don't buy that, honestly. She was fingered when unconscious. He has had his entire future thrown away. Not saying he doesn't deserve that, I just don't buy that her life is over. Women throughout history have rebounded from such things to lead very full lives.

It's not like a kid that was molested in the middle of their development ******ing their growth as a person.

As for your first point, ok so the shaming and being listed on the offender registry aren't necessarily courtroom justice. But 6 months was what was given. What would be sufficient? 5 years? 10 years? does it really matter? I'd be surprised if the kid ends up being any more than a factory worker or drug addict in his life. Sure, he made that choice.

I guess I just look at the whole thing as a tragedy instead of jumping on the lynch mob to get some kind of retributive justice. Would 5 years really make everyone more happy?

Retributive justice is way underrated. Five years would be good. Ten years is probably too much for a drunk kid.