New records from the Stanford sexual assault trial show how former swimmer Brock Turner and his attorneys attempted to discredit the victim and argued that the attack on the unconscious woman constituted consensual sex.
More than 1,000 pages of trial transcripts, obtained by the Guardian on Friday, offer a window into how the criminal justice system treats sexual assault survivors.
The testimony of Turner and his supporters sheds new light on the “traumatizing” process described by the victim in her emotional impact statement, which launched a national debate about sexual violence.
The documents also reveal that Turner allegedly laughed at bystanders who intervened during the assault on the Stanford campus. Turner changed his story throughout the process and came to trial with a version of the events that contradicted his earlier statements and the testimony of witnesses and police.
The 20-year-old was convicted of sexual assault with intent to rape an intoxicated woman and sexually penetrating an intoxicated and unconscious person with a foreign object. Two bystanders caught him “thrusting” on top of the motionless woman outside a fraternity house by a dumpster on 18 January 2015.
The case sparked outrage in June when Turner was sentenced to six months in county jail – significantly lighter than the minimum punishment of two years in state prison prescribed by law. Judge Aaron Persky is now facing a high-profile recall campaign and on Thursday removed himself from all criminal cases in the wake of intense scrutiny.
‘I tried to verbally ask, you know, Are you OK?’
The court records include testimony from police officials and the two men who intervened, all of which establish that Turner had assaulted a woman, aged 22 at the time of the assault, who was visibly unconscious and who awoke hours later with no memory.
Deputy Jeff Taylor said that when he approached the woman, “I tried to verbally ask, you know, ‘Are you OK? Can you hear me?’ And I was getting no response. So I started doing it quite a bit louder, basically to the point of yelling at her to see if I could get any response whatsoever. And I didn’t get anything.”
Peter Jonsson, one of two graduate students hailed as a hero for rescuing the victim, testified that “she looked asleep”, according to the transcript. Turner tried to run away “as fast as he could” when they approached, Jonsson said.
After they stopped Turner, Jonsson continued: “I noticed that he was smiling. So I said, ‘Why are you smiling? Stop smiling.’ … I said, again, ‘What are you doing? She’s unconscious.’”
At the time, Turner did not claim to the grad students that the encounter was consensual, Jonsson said. And records show that Turner later claimed to police that he did not try and run away. But more than a year later, on 13 March 2016, Turner had a very different story in front of a jury, according to the court records.
Questioned by prosecutor Alaleh Kianerci about Jonsson’s claims that Turner smiled, the defendant said, “I was laughing at the situation of how ridiculous it was.”
Turner further admitted that on the day of the assault, he lied to a detective when he said he didn’t try and run. “My mind couldn’t think clearly at the time.”
Turner also admitted under questioning that his testimony in court about why he and the victim ended up on the ground did not match his original comments to a detective. He had told the police official that he didn’t remember why they were on the ground during the assault, but in court a year later, he had a detailed story about them playfully stumbling, the transcript shows.
Questioned by his own attorney, Turner claimed that he met the victim at a party, they danced and kissed, he invited her back to his dorm, and they tripped and fell on the walk home.
“After you obtained her concurrence or permission to finger her, and you did finger her, what happened then?” his lawyer Mike Armstrong asked.
“I fingered her for a minute. And I thought she had an orgasm. And then I – well, during that time, I asked her if she liked it, and she said, uh-huh,” Turner replied.
Kianerci, however, asked Turner why he had not told the detective any of those details after the assault. “I was completely freaked out,” Turner said.
One year later a new dialogue emerged
In her viral statement, the victim discussed the pain of hearing Turner’s legal team craft a new narrative at trial. She wrote: “So one year later, as predicted, a new dialogue emerged.
“Brock had a strange new story, almost sounded like a poorly written young adult novel with kissing and dancing and hand holding and lovingly tumbling onto the ground, and most importantly in this new story, there was suddenly consent. One year after the incident, he remembered, oh yeah, by the way she actually said yes, to everything, so.”
In his hearing, Turner further defended his choice to have sexual encounters with intoxicated women, the transcripts show.
“She didn’t appear any more drunk than anybody else I had been with,” he told Kianerci.
“Is it normal for you to hook up with drunk girls?” the prosecutor asked.
“At a party, yes,” Turner replied.
Armstrong also brought in Kim Fromme, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Texas, Austin to strengthen his claims that the victim could have consented even if she was intoxicated.
“A blackout is a period of amnesia during drinking in which the person is fully conscious and aware to able [sic] to engage in all kinds of activities – walking, talking, driving a car, dancing, having sex, et cetera – they’re just simply not forming memories for those events,” Fromme said, according to the transcript.
Survivors’ advocates say that this line of argument is dangerous and perpetuates rape culture, since it allows perpetrators to discredit victims simply because they were intoxicated.
In his closing remarks, Armstrong cast blame on the victim, arguing she should have known better.
“She’s had more experience at college parties, maybe not fraternity parties but college parties, and she knows what it is to be in a blackout, because she’s experienced it four or five times before,” he said.
“Did she intend for what happened to happen? Of course, I don’t think she did. However, that doesn’t mean that she was not aware and conscious and thinking clearly and taking voluntary actions when she was with Brock Turner.”
The transcripts also offer further details into how Turner’s supporters came to his defense in court, echoing the controversial character letters that were released in June and revealed that many blamed the victim for the attack.
“I don’t believe that he would do anything that would harm anybody. I think that Brock is very respectful and courteous,” testified Gary Galbreath, a swimming coach from Brock Turner’s home town of Ohio.
“That would be the farthest type of behavior, the sexually aggressive or assaultive behavior that I would ever, ever, ever associate with Brock Turner,” said Jennifer Jervis, Turner’s former teacher.
The prosecutor repeatedly noted that his supporters have no knowledge of how Turner behaves when he is intoxicated. And his accomplishments and privileged background should not sway the jury, Kianerci argued in her closing argument.
“Brock Turner may not look like a typical rapist. But the fact of the matter is, despite the fact that he comes from a good family, despite the fact that he went to an elite school, despite the fact that he was a star swimmer, he is the typical, quintessential face of campus sexual assault.”
Julia Carrie Wong contributed to this report