Former Stanford swimmer Brock Allen Turner, twenty years old, was on trial for sexual assault that occurred January 17, 2015. Turner was accused of raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster after a party.

Turner’s trail recently occurred and he was granted a lenient sentence.  The former swimming star was found guilty of three felonies for sexually assaulting an unconscious, intoxicated woman outside an on-campus fraternity party in January 2015. He will be permanently registered as a sex offender but will not be surviving much time in prison.  Turner will be serving six months in federal prison with parole. However, this is where the controversy lies; he was subjected to up to fourteen years in prison but received only a fraction of that time. Many people are upset at this because they believe this is not enough, he must be punished more severely. Nicole Gagnon (10) believed “this sets a poor principle for college students and rapists. It shows that they are able to get away with their actions with little consequences. In order to decrease the rape present at our college campuses, we must enforce stricter sentencing for Turner and all students who are guilty of rape. If they fear the repercussions I hope they will be deterred from doing it.” However, on the contrary Turner’s father, Dan, believed the best thing for his son was simply parole without jail time. He argues that Brock was struggling to fit into Stanford and he was in fact a really good kid who may one small mistake.

At the trial through a letter addressed to the judge focusing on Turner’s actions, the unnamed twenty-three year old victim spoke out about how it has effect her. The vicim stated:

“Your honor,
If it is all right, for the majority of this statement I would like to address the defendant directly.
You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me, and that’s why we’re here today.
On January 17th, 2015, it was a quiet Saturday night at home. My dad made some dinner and I sat at the table with my younger sister who was visiting for the weekend. I was working full time and it was approaching my bed time. I planned to stay at home by myself, watch some TV and read, while she went to a party with her friends. Then, I decided it was my only night with her, I had nothing better to do, so why not, there’s a dumb party ten minutes from my house, I would go, dance weird like a fool, and embarrass my younger sister. On the way there, I joked that undergrad guys would have braces. My sister teased me for wearing a beige cardigan to a frat party like a librarian. I called myself “big mama”, because I knew I’d be the oldest one there. I made silly faces, let my guard down, and drank liquor too fast not factoring in that my tolerance had significantly lowered since college. The next thing I remember I was in a gurney in a hallway. I had dried blood and bandages on the backs of my hands and elbow. I thought maybe I had fallen and was in an admin office on campus. I was very calm and wondering where my sister was. A deputy explained I had been assaulted. I still remained calm, assured he was speaking to the wrong person. I knew no one at this party. When I was finally allowed to use the restroom, I pulled down the hospital pants they had given me, went to pull down my underwear, and felt nothing. I still remember the feeling of my hands touching my skin and grabbing nothing. I looked down and there was nothing. The thin piece of fabric, the only thing between my vagina and anything else, was missing and everything inside me was silenced. I still don’t have words for that feeling. In order to keep breathing, I thought maybe the policemen used scissors to cut them off for evidence.Then, I felt pine needles scratching the back of my neck and started pulling them out my hair. I thought maybe, the pine needles had fallen from a tree onto my head. My brain was talking my gut into not collapsing. Because my gut was saying, help me, help me. I shuffled from room to room with a blanket wrapped around me, pine needles trailing behind me, I left a little pile in every room I sat in. I was asked to sign papers that said “Rape Victim” and I thought something has really happened. My clothes were confiscated and I stood naked while the nurses held a ruler to various abrasions on my body and photographed them. The three of us worked to comb the pine needles out of my hair, six hands to fill one paper bag. To calm me down, they said it’s just the flora and fauna, flora and fauna. I had multiple swabs inserted into my vagina and anus, needles for shots, pills, had a nikon pointed right into my spread legs. I had long, pointed beaks inside me and had my vagina smeared with cold, blue paint to check for abrasions. After a few hours of this, they let me shower. I stood there examining my body beneath the stream of water and decided, I don’t want my body anymore. I was terrified of it, I didn’t know what had been in it, if it had been contaminated, who had touched it. I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital with everything else.”