Around Town: Taking a look at the Brock Turner case

If you like reports, take a look at these. The Brock Turner case file is now online at the Los Angeles Times website and the Stanford University on-campus crime statistics report can be found at stanford.edu.

You’ll be happy to learn that Stanford had no reports of murder, manslaughter, arson, incest or “hate” crimes in 2013 or 2014.

That’s the good news.

Last week, we heard the bad news. Stanford swimmer and Olympic hopeful Brock Turner was convicted of three felony rape charges (foreign object, unconscious, unable to consent), but was sentenced to only six months in jail.

Turner’s defense attorney and the judge were both Stanford graduates. There’s such a thing as being “too smart for your own good.”

If hindsight is 20-20, the defendant, attorney and the judge are wishing Turner had received a longer sentence. That way, he’d be home in a year, sans publicity, ready to turn over a new leaf, there’d be no recall movement or embarrassing Wikipedia pages.

America loves sincere remorse, adores stories of rehabilitation. None of that will ever be possible for Brock Turner, now that the police report describing his erection is online.

Nor for his teammates who allegedly received photos of the victim’s naked breasts. It’s all in the online case file.

Not every rape accusation is true. We’ve all lived through the false charges at Duke, and the Rolling Stone debacle, where an entire fraternity was slandered. We don’t want to lower our standards for a conviction.

Brock Turner, on the other hand, was convicted following a fair trial.

The movement to unseat the judge is troublesome. Our state’s judges stand for election, so it’s fair, in this case, to run a write-in candidate, but a recall goes over the line. As the prosecutor noted, the judge’s sentence was lawful and considered all the correct factors under the law.

On the other hand, one young man, exonerated of rape, says that the sentence is an example of bias. Brian Banks is African American. His family didn’t go to Stanford. His lawyer didn’t go to Stanford.

Banks was a Long Beach Poly football star with a bright future who served five years in prison for a rape he didn’t do. The alleged victim was caught on tape saying she made it up. By the time this wrong was corrected, it was too late for Banks to achieve his dream of a pro football career.

Another disparity between the neighborhood where Banks grew up and affluent communities, like La Cañada or the Stanford campus, is alcohol. In some neighborhoods, kids get in trouble for underage drinking. In others, they don’t.

Drinking is not a defense to rape.

Turner claimed he was influenced by the Stanford party culture. The D.A.’s sentencing memorandum, now online, pointed out that Turner’s high school text messages referenced several years of alcohol and drug use, back in his affluent Ohio hometown.

At Stanford, Turner and others were drinking illegally.

My point of view may sound old-fashioned. After all, kids will be kids. On the other hand, why teach your kids to break the law?

The social contract means that we elect people to enact laws. If we don’t like a law, we can lobby to change it or run for office ourselves, but we agree to follow the law. That’s the way the system works.

Because of the social contract, I can assume you will stop at a red light, drive in your lane, and not steal my car even if I accidentally leave it unlocked.

When schools and parents accept underage drinking, they teach the kids that the law does not apply to them.

Taken to an extreme, you end up with Brock Turner. His sense of entitlement is reflected in the stupid, stupid letters sent by his parents, teachers and friends. Did his lawyer not read them?

Let’s take a look at the Stanford crime statistics. In 2014, there were 26 on-campus rape reports, of which 22 were in the student residences. The dates of these reports are not listed, but pundits have characterized this as a rape report “every other week.”

On the other hand, the on-campus arrests for liquor law violations decreased. In 2013, there were 89 on-campus arrests for liquor law violations, but in 2014, there were only 38. Did the parties stop, or just the arrests?

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ANITA SUSAN BRENNER is a longtime La Cañada Flintridge resident and an attorney with Law Offices of Torres and Brenner in Pasadena. Contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on Instagram @realanitabrenner, Facebook and on Twitter @anitabrenner.