Brock Turner Is Set To Appeal His Sexual Assault Conviction

Brock Turner, 22, the Stanford college student who was convicted of sexual assault in March 2016, is set to appeal his conviction. According to his lawyers, Turner is seeking a new trial on the grounds that he previously didn’t get a fair trial.

Turner was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to serve six months jail time along with a three-year probation period. He has since been released from jail, and this new appeal could see him not have to commit to the mandatory lifetime requirement of registering as a sex offender.

According to USA Today, Brock Turner appeared before a three-judge panel, consisting of two women and one man, in San Jose on Tuesday in relation to the new trial request. Turner was not present during the appeal.

Papers were initially filed in December and his lawyers cited that the initial trial was “a detailed and lengthy set of lies.” A ruling on the matter should be granted by Justices Adrienne Grover, Franklin Elia, and Wendy Duffy within 90 days.

Brock’s lawyer, Eric Multhaup, who was given 15 minutes to state his case, told the California appeals court that Turner had “never intended to rape an unconscious woman,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

ABC 7 News reports that “the ex-Stanford swimmer wanted ‘outercourse’, not intercourse.” This argument appears to be based on the grounds that Brock Turner was found fully clothed at the time of the attack.

Attorney for former Stanford student Brock Turner seeks to overturn sexual assault conviction:https://t.co/DiqUw3vC1P

— KTVU (@KTVU) July 24, 2018

Multhaup was also concerned that the initial trial court “failed to instruct the jury on lesser included offenses that could have resulted in a different outcome.”

Assistant Attorney General Alisha Carlile responded to Multhaup’s claim by saying he had presented a “far-fetched version of events” that were not supportive of the case’s facts. She also cited that enough evidence had been presented to conclude that the guilty verdict was applicable in response to Multhaup’s claims against it.

Brock was originally convicted of sexual assault with “intent to commit rape of an intoxicated/unconscious person” in 2016 from an attack on a woman on campus in 2015. The victim, identified as Emily Doe, read a 7,000-word statement during that initial trial that tugged at the heartstrings of women the world over.

Turner was sentenced to serve six months behind bars, even though the potential was there to jail him for up to 14 years. At the time, there was outrage as the sentence was considered far too lenient. Brock Turner then went on to serve approximately half of that sentence on the grounds of good behavior.

While many women felt that the courts had been too lenient on Brock Turner, the case led to Governor Jerry Brown signing a bill that saw tougher penalties for “attacks on unconscious victims,” according to USA Today.