A petition aimed at forcing impeachment hearings against the judge in the Stanford rape trial has garnered over one million signatures.
“We the people would like to petition that Judge Aaron Persky be removed from his Judicial position for the lenient sentence he allowed in the Brock Turner rape case,” the Change.org campaign states.
“Despite a unanimous guilty verdict, three felony convictions, the objections of 250 Stanford students, Jeff Rosen the district attorney for Santa Clara, as well as the deputy district attorney who likened Turner to ‘a predator searching for prey’ Judge Persky allowed the lenient sentence suggested by the probation department,” the petition continued.
Turner received a six-month sentence, but is expected to serve only three months with good behavior, per county corrections rules. While one million signatures is nothing to scoff at, several legal experts recently told TheWrap that recalling Persky from the bench would be unlikely.
But Stanford Law Prof. Michele Dauber said she intends to launch an official recall drive, and as of Wednesday received $6,000 in contributions so far to support an effort to gather 58,634 signatures in 160 days.
The Stanford story drew national attention after the survivor, who has not been named publicly, shared her own 12-page statement describing in excruciating detail how she was raped behind a dumpster while unconscious.
The 23-year-old victim also slammed Turner and his lawyer for trying to discredit her by making an issue of the fact that she was intoxicated at the time of the attack.