Judge Who Softball Sentenced Brock Turner Gave A Latino Man 3 Years In Jail For Same Crime

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Judge Aaron Persky is the official who oversaw the trial of Stanford swimmer and rapist Brock Turner. Persky told the court that he was giving Brock Turner a short sentence, because prison could have a bad “impact” on him. People were pretty angry because, ya know, god forbid a criminal punishment have a negative effect on the criminal.

Well, now Judge Aaron Persky is back in the news, and it’s equally revolting.

Many people theorized after Turner’s trial, that the verdict was evidence of institutional race favoritism toward whites. (i.e. the “how could such a good kid from such a good family go so wrong?? effect) People suspected that if a person of color was caught committing the same crime, they NEVER would have been able to get the same sweet deal as Turner got.

As it turns out, those people were spot on the money.

Judge Aaron Persky was recently involved in another case, that involved an eerily similar circumstance:

[Raul] Ramirez was arrested at his home in Santa Clara County in November 2014 after his roommate called 911 to say that he had sexually assaulted her, according to police reports.

Ramirez gave the woman a “love letter” and later entered her bedroom and fingered her for about five to 10 minutes against her will, according to a police report, and stopped only when she started crying.

When police arrived, he admitted to the assault. “Ramirez knew what he did was wrong and he wanted to say sorry,” one officer wrote. (Source)

And unlike Turner, Ramirez apologized immediately, rather than murmur some kind of excuse about alcohol. That’s not to say apologies excuse ANYTHING, but it is certainly more than we saw from Mr. Turner.

Judge Persky responded by giving Ramirez three years in prison. This is compared to Turner’s 6 months (which is now only 3 months). And people are pissed:

https://twitter.com/kevinone/status/748181673670410241

Some have pointed out that Ramirez had a previous criminal record, perhaps contributing to the elevated sentence. Others have said that Ramirez’s sentence was “typical” while Turner’s was the bizarre one. A petition to remove Judge Persky has over a million signatures.

God bless the American criminal justice system.