It recounted that police found photos and messages on Turner's cell phone that indicated extensive drug use, including LSD, ecstasy, marijuana extracts, and excessive alcohol.

[5][32][33] Two Swedish graduate students, Peter Lars Jonsson and Carl-Fredrik Arndt, were cycling on the Stanford campus at about 1:00 a.m., on January 18, 2015, when they spotted the assault taking place.

According to Arndt and Jonsson, they surprised Turner behind a dumpster as he was on top of an unconscious 22-year-old Chanel Miller,[3] whose dress had been pulled up to expose her genitals,[27] her underwear and cell phone having been dropped beside her.

[10] The two formal charges of rape under California state law were dropped at a preliminary hearing on October 7, 2015,[1][10][64] after DNA testing revealed no genetic evidence of genital-to-genital contact.

[67] Prosecutors recommended that Turner be given a six-year prison sentence based on the purposefulness of the action, the effort to hide this activity, and Miller's intoxicated state.

[69] The probation report did not mention another woman who said she had been upset by Turner's unwanted physical advances at a Kappa Alpha party eight days before the charged offense.

Brewer said that Persky had carefully evaluated the evidence and gave what he thought was a fair and appropriate sentence in the case based on the Santa Clara County Probation Department's pre-sentence investigation report.

[75] Deputy Public Defender Sajid Khan did not consider the sentence lenient and noted "Turner will register as a sex offender for life, and if he violates his probation he could go to prison for 14 years."

Khan further stated that "Persky's reputation among public defenders (a group closely attuned to racial inequities in the courtroom) is that of a fair-minded jurist," saying, "No one has been able to cite an example so far of him where a similarly situated minority client has been treated harshly by him.

"[80] Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeffrey F. Rosen criticized the letter from Turner's father to the court, saying it reduced a brutal sexual assault to "20 minutes of action.

[83] Professor Michele Dauber, of the Stanford Law School and longtime advocate on campus sexual assault,[84] who is also a family friend of Miller's, led the Committee to Recall Judge Persky.

"[18] Danny Cevallos stated that judges enjoy a modicum of independence from public pressure and "there are no apparent grounds for impeachment or allegations of judicial misconduct, based on this sentence alone."

"[17] Similarly, other sitting judges (both state and federal) and legal commentators defended Persky's decision, noted that the sentence might, in their opinion, be disproportionate due to the lifelong consequences of a criminal conviction and sex offender registration, and called on the bar to protect the independence of the judiciary.

[77][78][79] In June 2016, at least ten prospective jurors refused to serve in a misdemeanor trial for possession of stolen property where Persky was presiding, citing the judge's sentencing of Turner as a reason.

[93] The following week, Rosen filed a peremptory motion for recusal in a case where Persky was to preside over the criminal trial of a surgical nurse charged with sexual battery for allegedly touching the genitals of a patient under sedation.

"[93] As a result of the backlash in the wake of his sentencing, Persky asked not to hear any more criminal cases and was reassigned to the Civil Division of the California Court system.

The film cites the Turner case to critique the demand for harsh sentences to address sexual violence, which Cohen says disproportionately impacts low-income and people of color.

[108] In 2011, Persky presided over a civil lawsuit against multiple members of the De Anza College baseball team, who were accused by plaintiff "Jane Doe" of gang-raping the then-underage girl while she was unconscious, until another party attendee who heard the commotion intervened.

The New York Times described the statement as a "cri de coeur against the role of privilege in the trial and the way the legal system deals with sexual assault.

[115] In one statement, she detailed the negative effects Turner had on her life: "You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today.

"[30][117] Miller expresses gratitude to "the intern who made me oatmeal when I woke up at the hospital that morning, to the deputy who waited beside me, to the nurses who calmed me, to the detective who listened to me and never judged me, to my advocates who stood unwaveringly beside me, to my therapist who taught me to find courage in vulnerability.

[127] Representative Ann McLane Kuster, Democrat from New Hampshire, said news of the attack led her to identify herself as the victim of sexual assaults, and to focus legislative efforts on the problem.

The juror said that "the fact that Turner ran away after two Stanford graduate students noticed him on top of an unmoving woman" was compelling evidence, along with the incoherence of the message that Doe left her boyfriend before meeting Brock.

"[53] On June 4, Michele Dauber posted a letter written by Dan Turner, Brock's father, asking for leniency for his son, arguing that the punishment was a "steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.

[144] Chanel Miller's sister, Tiffany,[145] (referred to by police at the time as "Jane Doe 2")[146] wrote a letter saying "an entire part of my heart has been permanently broken" by the assault, the lengthy prosecution, and Turner's failure to take responsibility for his actions.

[149] Turner had a prior campus law enforcement encounter when he was found by Stanford University police to be a minor in possession of cans of beer on November 11, 2014.

[155] At the time of his conviction, it was reported that Turner's legal appeal would be led by attorney Dennis Riordan,[156] who represented former baseball player Barry Bonds in a perjury case.

He argued that his conviction should be overturned, that his lifetime requirement to register as a sex offender be canceled, and that he be given a new trial, on the grounds that the prosecutor claimed that the assault took place behind a trash bin, but the victim was found behind a garbage enclosure.

Assembly Bill 2888 (written by District Attorney Jeff Rosen) would provide for a mandatory minimum three-year prison sentence for sexual assault of an unconscious or intoxicated person.

[172]The eighteenth season of the television program Law & Order: Special Victims Unit highlighted the People v. Turner case, in its episode titled "Rape Interrupted".