Brock Turner: California voters to get chance to fire Judge over sentence given to student guilty of sexual assualt

Brock Turner was released from jail after serving three months

Activists hold signs calling for the removal of Judge Aaron Persky from the bench in San Francisco, California (REUTERS/Stephen Lam)

California voters will get the chance to fire a judge who handed a six-month prison sentence to a Stanford student convicted of sexual assault.

The jail sentence Judge Aaron Persky issued for Brock Turner — who was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman outside a college party — fell short of what prosecutors sought, spurring outrage and launching a campaign to recall the judge.

Under California law, voters can unseat elected officials if they gain enough signatures to hold a vote and then a majority approves it. A campaign to recall Mr Persky has crossed that first threshold, the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters announced.

“This historic campaign is part of a national social movement to end impunity for athletes and other privileged perpetrators of sexual assault and violence against women,” recall campaign chair Michele Dauber said in a statement.

Turner was released from jail after serving three months. Much of the outcry in response to Mr Persky’s decision centered on his explanation for the sentence in which he said a harsher penalty would have a “severe impact” on Turner’s life, noting that the student was intoxicated at the time of the crime and said people had vouched for his character.

An appeals court late last year halted Mr Persky’s request to block signature gathering. The judge issued a statement last year arguing he was compelled to “consider both sides” and that “California law requires every judge to consider rehabilitation and probation for first-time offenders”. Turner did not have prior criminal record.

State elected officials in California’s capital of Sacramento are among those who have backed Mr Persky’s ousting, and the political fallout from the judge’s sentencing decision reverberated beyond the recall campaign.

Representatives also advanced bills that expanded the definition of rape to include all forms of nonconsensual sexual assault and mandated prison terms for assaulting unconscious victims. Governor Jerry Brown signed both into law.

Mr Turner appealed his conviction in December, with his attorney arguing he did not get a fair hearing.