Brock Turner’s judge facing recall for giving sex offender lenient sentence

The US judge who gave Brock Turner a lenient sentence is now facing recall. Judge Aaron Persky had infamously given the former Stanford student only six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.

On Tuesday, Santa Clara County supervisors placed the recall of Persky on the June 5 ballot, which means voters would get to decide whether to oust the California judge. It is the first judicial recall in 86 years and only the fourth time in more than a century, Mercury News notes.

The pro-recall campaign turned in more than 95,000 signatures last month, obligating the board to put the measure on the countrywide ballot. Stanford law professor Michele Dauber led the recall effort in June 2016 after Persky gave Turner a lenient sentence of just six months.

In sentencing Turner, Persky claimed that a longer sentence would have a “severe impact” on the criminal. Turner was facing a maximum of 14 years in prison but only served three months of his six months’ sentence. He was 20 years old when he was found by two Swedish grad students about to sexually assaulting a half-naked unconscious woman behind a dumpster on Jan. 28, 2015. He was convicted of three counts of felony sexual assault in 2016.

Persky’s controversial sentencing has led to a massive public outcry. He claimed it was a legal requirement for judges to consider rehabilitation and probation for first-time offenders. Advocates did not accept his explanation, though, saying that the judge was compassionate towards Turner based on Turner’s privilege as a white male. The judge allegedly did not consider the impact and message of his leniency on the 22-year-old victim, hidden as Emily Doe in court.