On Monday, a letter from a male juror who served on the Brock Turner sexual assault trial was published on Palo Alto Online, with his reaction to the sentence in the case. “Shame on you,” the juror said to Judge Aaron Persky for the six-month jail sentence he gave to Turner. The juror felt the punishment made “a mockery of the whole trial and the ability of the justice system to protect victims of assault and rape.”
The juror said he was “shocked and appalled” by what he described as a “ridiculously lenient sentence.” “Clearly there are few to no consequences for a rapist even if they are caught in the act of assaulting a defenseless, unconscious person,” he said, after a case that he hoped would be “a very strong deterrent to on-campus assaults.”
A 30-year resident of the U.S. who recently became a citizen, he felt that Judge Persky essentially took the case out of the jury’s hands. He quoted Judge Persky’s declaration at the sentencing hearing that “after the trial all sides should accept the jury’s findings,” but he believed that the judge himself did not accept those findings. He disagreed with Judge Persky’s belief that the facts of the case showed the unusual circumstances needed to undercut what would normally be a minimum two-year prison sentence. The juror felt that this case was not unusual at all. “Women like Ms. Doe suffer daily from similar crimes and I fear your sentence will make these victims less willing to report their attacks.”
“Justice has not been served in this case,” he said. “The jury’s verdict of guilt on all three felony counts of sexual assault was completely disregarded in an effort to spare the perpetrator a ‘hardship.'”
The juror is just the latest person related to the case to write a letter, either to the court or the press. Previously, the public had seen statements from Brock, his father, his grandparents, and the woman herself. Frustration from jurors towards Judge Persky over the sentence is spilling over into future cases, as well, with potential jurors for new cases reportedly refusing to serve in his courtroom.
