Sadly, in the US “being a student athlete” and “good grades” too often go hand in hand in a way that’s got very little to do with the “student” part, to the point where in a lot of schools the second will produce the first.
Could be right. Could be that the judge feels that a fine young man shouldn’t have to suffer because a tramp got liquored up and passed out. He may have just been looking for any excuse to be lenient. He wouldn’t be the first backward-ass misogynist in a black robe.
Yeah, well… I stepped into that one.
But to be fair, every college gives preferences to recruited athletes.
Also, he was a freshman so his writing is not really a reflection on Stanford, he hadn’t really been there long enough for them to fix a lifetime of suck.
I don’t know the whole story but I don’t think I need to know every last detail once you have established that he was trying to fuck an unconscious girl behind a dumpster.
Sure, sometimes good people do evil things but the way this boy is acting doesn’t make me think he is a good person who did a bad thing. It makes me think he’s a bad guy that finally got caught. And judging from his parents, I think some of it was the result of nurture rather than nature.
The reason we end up crucifying rape victims is because one of the primary defenses against rape is consent. When a woman says she did not consent and the man says she did, they can’t just take the woman’s word for it and lock the guy in jail, they look at the woman (and man) under a microscope and let the jury decide if they think there was consent or not, this is particularly harrowing in the case of first time offenders from good backgrounds (not poor or black). In THIS case however, there is no question of consent (the girl was unconscious), so I am not sure what the purpose of the trial was other than to try and get a better plea bargain. But when you try that tactic and lose the trial, you also usually get the book thrown at you rather than get a relative slap on the wrist.
I understand giving a reduced sentence to a young first time offender who was drunk and had displayed remorse but if you are going to go light on the jail time, you frequently make the probation for more than the minimum term. I wonder if he would have been given such a light sentence if he was a black basketball player on the Stanford team.
There is a subconscious effort on the part of white authority figures to spare white children from the consequences of their youthful indiscretions. They are much more neutral and objective with Asian kids and they generally don’t give a shit what happens with black and Hispanic kids (its not like they have a future anyway amirite?). Being particularly good looking, athletic, academically successful or wealthy helps a lot but if I had to choose just one of those things, the min/maxxer in me would want to be white. All of those tings are helpful in different situations but being white helps in almost every situation.
Of course but using Occam’s razor, why attribute to malice what can easily be explained by bias. I mean bias is fucking everywhere, corruption is actually pretty rare and the family is not really very wealthy.
Character statements like that generally don’t usually spend a lot of time showing concern for the victim. That’s the defendant’s job, not his character witness. The defendant apparently showed plenty of remorse to the probation officer who recommended the light sentence. So that’s another guy that needs to be put under the microscope.
This is not the letter I would have written either, I find parts of it offensive and myopic but I think it is within the bounds of morality and ethical conduct during the sentencing phase when guilt has already been established. You’re basically just begging the judge for mercy at this point, not contesting the verdict itself. Just FYI, the father was not talking about how horrible the 6 month sentence was, he was talking about the 6 year sentence recommended by the prosecutor (the prosecutor was recommending a sentence based on the premise that the defendant was a sexual predator because he displayed predatory behavior by taking the victim behind the dumpster).
His “excuse” was the probation report. They recommended the light sentence and the judge followed the probation report rather than the prosecutor’s recommendation.
Okay, then here’s a question… you say [paraphrasing] that your basically just throwing yourself at the mercy of the judge hoping for any leniency and because of being in that position, someone would basically be forced to forgo any focus on the victim and solely sing the praises of the defendant, yes?
But what if, unbeknownst to you, the judge favors those who they think will be properly contrite for their actions and attempt a true turn around, resulting in no recidivism.
Wouldn’t you be playing Russian roulette by not saying the perp would ever take responsibility? And the frightening thing here was, apparently not a single person who wrote on his behalf took that approach. I find that incredibly telling.
That’s where I’m coming from. I would hope not many parents (and other loved ones) would come off this poorly while hoping to help.
[At least one of the jurors is not happy with the judge so he called the judge out publicly in an interview and a letter:
](http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/06/13/brock-turner-juror-to-judge-shame-on-you)
Wow. There was a two year minimum and he ignored it?? Yeah, I can’t imagine where I got my idea that there was more to this than meets the eye.
:dubious: The fact that Stanford, one of the most competitive universities in the country with an applicant acceptance rate of under 5%, admitted this guy as a student in the first place is a reflection on them.
Of course, it’s also a reflection on the alumni and other fans who prioritize sports success over academic achievement to the extent of incentivizing the admission of very mediocre students who happen to be good athletes.
It’s the same in France in some schools - my own highschool prided itself on its rugby tradition and team. The “Sport-Etudes” kids were some of the most obnoxious slabs of beef this side of mad cow disease, jock bullies to a man ; many were shit in class but never got held back or anything. Certainly none ever earned disciplinary punishments worse than detention over the shit they pulled.
I like to believe most of them ended up as phys. ed. teachers :mad:
Yup. Only white guys can fuck with time travel, for one thing.
Apparently he took pictures of her naked breast and shared them with his friends.
So you have seen his application? Know his SAT scores and GPA? Read his admissions essay? Seen a copy of his grades from his time as a Stanford student?
Sure maybe you are right. But this is not the perpetrator writing the letter, it is his parent.
I think his sentence was three years but he only had to serve 3 months of it in jail, the rest of it was probation.
EVERY top school lowers their standards for athletes, legacies, and underrepresented minorities. Stanford might do it a little bit more than Yale but its a matter of degree.
Olympic level athletes generally get some consideration for that achievement. However much of a scumbag this guy may be, he is a highly accomplished scumbag.
Giving a preference to high achievers in any area is justifiable. giving preferences to people were born with a particular skin color but has no other socioeconomic disadvantage is a bit harder to justify. Giving preferences to people who chose their parents wisely is almost impossible to justify.
I love that guy.
No, it doesn’t matter that he’s the father; that doesn’t give him a valid excuse to ignore the crime that his son committed and to denigrate the victim. You’re wrong here.
I don’t know what a “Tiger mom” is nor do I have any idea why you would need to note that the kid’s parents are white and so compare the two, unless this was just your way of getting in a little racist commentary.
You’re wrong again. If society didn’t agree with them, we wouldn’t allow the legal profession to have them. Are you under the impression that lawyers are not part of society?
The father is not a paid shill operating under a specific set of ethics, rules and laws. He is not, in fact, obligated to his son at all. You do not appear to understand the meaning of many of the words that you write, since you think that parent’s are “obligated” to their adult children, somehow. They are not. So his father is 100% less “obligated” to his son than the son’s lawyer.
First, you’re the one constructing straw men, not me. What I wrote there is in no way a straw man and what you wrote calls into question whether or not you understand the term you used. In fact, there’s a lot of that kind of discrepancy in your writing.
So you wrote that “no, not anything at all is fine” but just before that you asked if the family has to bury their loved one beneath the prison… you contradict yourself and offer mutually exclusive extremes without noticing the excluded middle.
If there are things you think are out of bounds to do in defense of a loved one who has committed a heinous and violent crime, where is your line? Murder? Arson? Character assassination? Financial ruin? Kidnapping? You don’t appear to have aline while claiming that you do, which only weakens your position and your arguments further (if that’s possible).
Your position is indefensible by a civilized person. You should either rethink it or your commitment to living in a society because they are incompatible. Personally, I don’t think society would suffer at all should you choose to remove yourself from it but I think you’ll find it easier to change your thinking than to live in isolation, but YMMV.