Brock Turner Case Study

After spending nearly a year fighting over the devastating trial, another rape victim has their justice ripped from their grasp. In January of 2015, Brock Turner, a well-known Stanford swimmer committed an act of assault on an innocent victim who couldn’t recall what had happened. Two nearby bikers who witnessed Turner on top of the victim in an alleyway behind a dumpster, chased down and tackled the unforgiving man. Because of the victim’s intoxicated state, Turner’s attorneys used that to their advantage, claiming that only Brock could recollect the events that happened in that evening. The victim received no opportunity to express how the assault had mentally damaged her as his attorneys picked and prodded the victim through questions about

“...he said he was in the process of establishing a program for high school and college students so that he could ‘speak out against the college campus drinking culture and the sexual promiscuity that goes along with that,’”("20 minutes”). The assault that Brock Turner took place in, is not defined because of the level of their intoxication, it is explained through basic moral and knowingness that rape is wrong. Because the victim was unresponsive, the act is directly considered unacceptable. Even more so, the act of rape should not be undermined to something as under-represented as sexual promiscuity. Turner and his attorney’s claim that he only committed the assault because he was under the influence of alcohol and that he should personally participate in programs that enforce the effects of binge drinking. Turner’s father, Dan Turner, explained that the imprisonment of his son is not an appropriate punishment because Brock intended to educate other college students about the precariousness of drinking alcohol and the effects that can occur in a result, ("20 minutes”). The point taken from his argument is that Turner plans on creating programs that prevent binge drinking, despite the fact that the case he is involved in, is not surrounded by binge drinking, it is in the means of rape, whether the defendant is intoxicated or not. The victim speaks out in her speech explaining that her case is not thoroughly represented through a program about alcohol consumption, instead a program that prevented rape on a college campus would be more ideal. “You realize, having a drinking problem is different than drinking and then forcefully trying to have sex with someone? Show men how to respect women, not how to drink less”