Stanford rapist Brock Turner is getting out of jail this week, three months early

By Rafi Schwartz  |  August 29, 2016 | 8:59pm
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Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer whose rape conviction and subsequent lenient sentencing sparked a firestorm of controversy, will reportedly be released from jail on Friday, September 2. He will have served just half his allotted time behind bars.

Online records obtained by KTLA in June showed that Turner, who was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster following a party, was slated for an early release release from his six-month sentence . He was booked into the  Santa Clara County jail on June 2. According to Bay Area news outlet KRON4, county inmates who maintain a clean disciplinary record are typically released after serving only half their time in jail. “That date was given to us by the court system,” said Sgt. James Jensen of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s office explained to the Washington Post.

After three months in jail, Turner will have completed just 1/24th of the six year sentence recommended by prosecutors in his rape trial. Judge Aaron Persky, who presided over Turner’s conviction, ruled at the time that six months in prison was the appropriate punishment for his crime, since  “a prison sentence would have a severe impact on him.”

Turner’s sentence was held by many as an example of a criminal being given a significantly light punishment for a crime that, were he not white and upper-class, would have been much more severe. In the wake of the decision, more than one million people signed a petition calling for Judge Persky to step down from the judicial bench. On August 26th, Persky announced that he had requested to be reassigned from criminal cases; starting on September 6th, he will only preside over civil trials.

On Monday, Stanford University law professor Michele Dauber, who has helped lead efforts to remove Judge Persky from the bench, tweeted that a rally against Persky would be held at the San Jose hall of justice on the day of Turner’s release.

Upon release, Turner will spend three years on probation, and will be required to register as a sex offender.

 
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