The attorney for Brock Turner, who famously served only three months in prison for sexually assaulting an intoxicated and unconscious woman, is trying to have his client's exual assualt conviction overturned
Brock Turner, the man who has become synonymous with rape culture on college campuses in America, did not intend to rape an unconscious woman because he engaged only in ‘sexual outercourse’ with her, the former Stanford University student’s lawyer argued during a hearing brought by Turner’s team to try and overthrow his sexual assault conviction.
Turner famously only served three months in prison for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster in 2015. The judge’s decision to hand Turner just six months in prison - of which he only served three - sparked an international outcry and the judge, Aaron Persky, was ousted by voters for his decision.
Turner was convicted by a jury in June 2016 to three counts of sexual assault: assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated woman, sexually penetrating a woman with a foreign object, and sexually penetrating an unconscious woman with a foreign object. He was also required to register as a sex offender.
At a Tuesday hearing before a three-judge panel in California's 6th District Court of Appeal, Turner's attorney, Eric Multhaup, argued that the jury's verdict should be overturned because of lack of evidence, the Palo Alto Online reported.
Multhaup said that Turner had only engaged in ‘sexual outercourse’ with the 21-year-old victim, known only as Emily Doe, which did not demonstrate an intent to commit rape, Buzzfeed News reported.
He described outercourse as a ‘version of safe sex’ that does not involve penile contact and involves people being fully clothed.
One of the judges during the appeal hearing, Associate Justice Franklin Elia, countered Multhaup with a Supreme Court ruling that said the defendant's exposure of himself was not required to prove an intent to commit rape.
Multhaup argued that Turner engaged in ‘outercourse’ because he was fully dressed and only engaged in ‘aggressive thrusting’ as he climbed on top of the unconscious, and intoxicated woman after a fraternity party.
The lawyer also argued that the jury used ‘imagination’ and ‘speculation’ while arriving at their guilty verdict for Turner, and that they ‘filled in the blanks in the prosecution's case,’ Palo Alto Online wrote.
But seemingly the panel of judges were not having any of it. ‘I absolutely don’t understand what you are talking about,’ Elia said during the hearing, the Mercury News reported. ‘We are not in a position to say (of the jury), you should have gone a different way,’ Elia said.
The state attorney general's office argued that there was ‘ample evidence supporting the jury’s determination of guilt,’ a spokesperson for the office told BuzzFeed News Wednesday.