New drinking game: Take a shot every time there is a severe error in our legal system.
Actually, hold off. Otherwise we’d all be blackout drunk before finishing this article.
Infamous Stanford student Brock Turner was found guilty of three felony counts: assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated or unconscious person, penetration of an intoxicated person and penetration of an unconscious person.
A prosecutor argued he should spend six years in prison, while the judge who made the final decision ruled he would be jailed for just six months. Even then, Turner was released after three months on account of “good behavior.” Why was he in jail for the same amount of time I have been using my current tube of mascara?
Sophomore hospitality and leadership major Abigail Brunstad said she thinks the social stigma between guys and girls needs to be changed because in current rape culture, the girl is often at fault for “asking for it.” Brunstad said the fact that people question “who to point the finger at” in a rape case is absolutely ridiculous.
Over 100,023 people have electronically signed a petition to have Turner recalled to bench. This petition has also kept the case’s judge, Aaron Persky, away from any more sexual assault cases. Unfortunately there are more judges like Persky out there.
According to CNN, a case in which a 19-year-old woman claimed she was raped over a bathroom sink during a house party was brought to the attention of Canadian Federal Court judge Robin Camp.
Camp asked the victim why she didn’t “skew her pelvis” or push her bottom into the sink to avoid penetration. In other words, he openly wondered, “Why couldn’t you just keep your knees together?”
As if it couldn’t get any worse, he also said, “Young [women] want to have sex, particularly if they’re drunk,” and in a different part of the trial, “Some sex and pain sometimes go together … that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
Currently, Camp is undergoing a judicial council hearing, which will determine whether he keeps his position on the bench.
I’m not sure when males became so well versed in the language and sex lives of teenage girls or when judges were allowed to be so vocal, but neither is ok. After basically acquitting the man charged with the crime, Camp placed the cherry on top of the cake by addressing the rapist and other men with similar intentions by saying:
“I want you to tell your friends, your male friends, that they have to be far more gentle with women. They have to be far more patient. And they have to be very careful. To protect themselves, they have to be very careful.”
It’s absurd, but not uncommon, for a woman to be blamed for her own rape, but even more troubling that a rapist will potentially face shorter time in jail than people convicted of far less serious crimes such as growing marijuana.
Kristoffer Lewandowski, a former U.S. Marine, is facing an upcoming hearing that could land him five years in jail for growing six marijuana plants that he planned on using to help him overcome his severe post traumatic stress disorder.
A veteran who could seriously benefit from a more rehabilitative type of punishment may serve 20 times the amount of time than an unremorseful rapist spent in jail. The scale measuring the weight each crime holds must be defective, because I don’t think anyone would agree that rape should be taken less seriously than marijuana growing.
“There needs to be some form of assessment or renewal of laws to update to today’s society because we live in a time where marijuana use is becoming more common and the laws need to be specified to express what’s legal and what isn’t legal,” a sophomore student with a concentration in legal studies Sam Kiesewetter said. “On another note, anyone who is the legal age of an adult should serve a sentence equal to the disgusting crime they committed regarding rape.”
Crimes in society these days are not at all dealt with through equal punishments, and that needs to change. Our country needs to figure out why things like unconscious rape and assault are being outweighed by things like marijuana growing to cure mental illness.
If our justice system becomes even slightly fairer, America would be a safer place for all of us to coexist.
