Judge Aaron Persky continues to come under fire for his decision to hand convicted rapist Brock Tuner an infuriating 6-month sentence.
The sentence falls short of Californian guidelines on minimum sentencing and is an offensively small fraction of the maximum sentencing of four years.
Worse still, Turner is expected to only serve half of the sentence in prison.
Persky has defended the sentence by stating that he believes Truner showed evidence of sufficient remorse in his impact statement.
The sentence has been particularly controversial because of a powerful letter from the victim claiming she believed Turner failed to accept responsibility for his crimes.
“what I truly wanted was for Brock to get it, to understand and admit to his wrongdoing. Unfortunately, after reading the defendant’s report, I am severely disappointed and feel that he has failed to exhibit sincere remorse or responsibility for his conduct” she writes.
According to hearing transcripts obtained by Buzzfeed, Persky believes Turner displayed a “genuine feeling of remorse.”
“And so you have Mr. Turner expressing remorse, which I think, subjectively, is genuine, and [the survivor] not seeing that as a genuine expression of remorse because he never says, ‘I did this. I knew how drunk you were, I knew how out of it you were and I did it anyway,’” Persky said.
“I don’t think that bridge will, probably, ever be crossed,” he says.
He continues:
“Is state prison for this defendant an antidote to that poison? Is incarceration in state prison the right answer for poisoning [the survivor’s] life?”
“I think … you have to take the whole picture in terms of what impact imprisonment has on a specific individual’s life,” he concludes.
