Judge in Brock Turner case is reassigned

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A California court said Thursday that a judge who was harshly criticized and subjected to a recall campaign for the leniency of a six-month jail sentence for a former Stanford University swimmer who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman will no longer hear criminal cases, a move that came at his own request.

Santa Clara County Presiding Judge Rise Pichon said she has granted the request for reassignment of Judge Aaron Persky.

"While I firmly believe in Judge Persky's ability to serve in his current assignment, he has requested to be assigned to the civil division, in which he previously served," Pichon said in a statement. "Judge Persky believes the change will aid the public and the court by reducing the distractions that threaten to interfere with his ability to effectively discharge the duties of his current criminal assignment."

The move is not necessarily permanent. The assignment is subject to an annual review and takes effect Sept. 6.

Pichon said that another judge's desire to transfer to Palo Alto has made a quick swap with Persky possible. Normally such changes don't happen until a new year.

Persky ordered the six-month sentence for Brock Turner, a Dayton, Ohio, resident who had been attending Stanford on a swimming scholarship. The judge cited a probation department recommendation and the effect the conviction will have on Turner's life.

Authorities say Turner sexually assaulted the girl while she was passed out near a trash bin.

The case sparked a national debate on college drinking and sexual assault and led to a recall effort against the judge.

Michelle Dauber, the Stanford law professor behind the recall effort, said that while the move from Persky is welcome, the recall attempt will continue, in part because Persky "can still transfer back to hearing criminal cases any time he chooses."

"The issue of his judicial bias in favor of privileged defendants in sex crimes and domestic violence still needs to be addressed by the voters of Santa Clara County," Dauber said in an email. "In our opinion, Judge Persky is biased and should not be on the bench."

Dauber and other organizers have said they will begin collecting signatures in April to qualify the issue for the November 2017 ballot.

Persky had already departed from two sex-crimes cases since his June sentencing of the 20-year-old Turner exploded in national media.

On Monday he formally recused himself from deciding whether to reduce a San Jose plumber's felony child pornography charges to misdemeanors.

That came two months after the district attorney's office removed Persky from a different sexual assault case, saying "we lack confidence" in the judge's ability to decide it impartially.

In addition to his supervising judge, attorneys who have argued in front of Persky cite his abilities. Santa Clara County deputy public defender Gary Goodman in June called him a "solid and respected judge," while defense attorney Barbara Muller said he's "one of the fairest judges" in the county.

A jury convicted Turner, a former Olympic hopeful, of sexually assaulting the young woman he met at a campus fraternity party in January 2015 after she passed out behind a trash bin.

The sentence along with the long and much-shared statement the victim read in court made the case a national rallying cry for a reconsideration of how rape is handled by the law.

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Now contrast this with cases in which women are convicted in sex crimes. Particularly against young children,especially boys. These guilty as hell women get a light sentence and no one bitches about it. Turner,unlike these women,will have to register as a sex offender for life. A lot of these women commit multiple offenses and are less remorseful than Turner was and still get light sentences. The worse part is a lot of blue pill morons come out with "hot for teacher" bullshit. We don't need these idiots weighing in. In Britain it is worse because judges there are bending over backwards or merely bending over,to avoid giving women custodial sentences. It's time to end this double standard bullshit.

California State Senator wants to lengthen the statue of limitations for rape

California Senator Connie Leyva
ter wrenching testimony that included accounts from three alleged victims of comedian Bill Cosby, a Senate committee on Tuesday gave its first approval to a bill that would allow sex crimes to be prosecuted no matter how long ago they occurred.

The bill, SB 813, from state Sen. Connie Leyva (D-Chino), eliminates the current 10-year statute of limitations on rape cases. Leyva argued in the hearing that giving sexual assault victims more time to report incidents would hold more rapists accountable and provide closure to painful situations.

“A victim should always have the hope that they will be able to have justice,” Leyva said.

The accusations against Cosby provided a direct example of what the bill seeks to change. In recent years, more than 50 women have accused Cosby of sexually abusing them in incidents that, in some cases, were alleged to have occurred decades ago. District attorneys across the country have cited statutes of limitations as a reason they can’t pursue charges against Cosby, though he does face prosecution in Pennsylvania over an alleged incident in 2004. Cosby has denied all wrongdoing.

Lili Bernard, a Los Angeles actress who appeared on "The Cosby Show," testified that Cosby mentored her as a father figure before drugging her, suffocating her with a pillow and raping her in the 1990s. Bernard said she went to Atlantic City, N.J., where one of the alleged incidents occurred, with evidence of the crime and was told she had missed the deadline to file charges by a few months.

“War criminals, no matter how many decades have passed, cannot evade prosecution,” Bernard told the Senate committee. “I am asking you to do the same thing for us, rape survivors, who survived the war upon our body.”

Also speaking in favor of the bill were Victoria Valentino, a former Playboy model who alleged Cosby drugged and raped her at an apartment in the Hollywood Hills in 1969; a woman identified before her testimony as “Kacey," who worked with Cosby and said the actor sexually assaulted her 20 years ago in Bel-Air; and high-profile attorney Gloria Allred, who represents 30 Cosby accusers.

Opponents of the bill said during the 90-minute debate in the Senate Committee on Public Safety that the measure doesn’t address the core problems surrounding rape prosecution. They argued that law enforcement agencies aren't as aggressive as they could be in going after alleged rapists, citing a recent state audit that found that many existing rape kits hadn't been tested. The opponents, which included the California Public Defenders Assn. and some victims rights groups, also warned of an increased chance for wrongful convictions, given the length of time that might have passed after an incident.

“When decades pass between prosecution and a criminal offense, memories fade, witnesses die, evidence is lost,” said Natasha Minsker, director of the California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “And it becomes impossible for a person accused of a crime to defend himself or herself.”

California is not the first state to weigh changing its statute of limitations on sexual assaults in the wake of the allegations against Cosby. Last year, Nevada lawmakers increased the statute of limitations for rape prosecutions from four years to 20 years after a Cosby accuser pushed for the change.

Leyva’s bill would not result in Cosby’s prosecution in California for any previous allegations. The bill would only apply to crimes committed after Jan. 1, 2017, or to incidents where the statute of limitations hadn’t run out by that date. The bill now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

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This bill is good example of a bad idea. What it will do is destroy the rights of every man accused of rape 15-20 years down the line. It must be fully opposed. If you are a California resident or someone who is registered to vote in California then contact your Senator and let them know you oppose SB 813 and that you want them to oppose it.If you live in California Senator Connie Leyva's district let her know that she is wrong and that she needs to respect the statue of limitations.