Talk:People v. Turner/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

alcohol percentages

http://www.staradvertiser.com/breaking-news/4-accounts-of-the-brock-turner-sexual-assault-case/ says that the actual blood tests were 0.12 for Emily and 0.13 for Brock. Hers taken 6 hours later and they guessed 0.24 so for them to guess a lower number for Brock one would assume the test for him was done sooner. It doesn't clarify how much though. Can we.find out who took the blood and when? Who did the estimates?

Does this mean any papers who falsy reported .17/.24 as real instead of estimates now have questionable reliability?

Gave alcohol subsection, is a big issue. Beyond percentages I think we should also mention what has been said about the actual type and quantity of beverage too. Ranze (talk) 09:46, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

• "Star Advertiser"?? Really? Here is the police report. Page 9 lists the blood report on Turner as an attachment, but the attachment is not included. I suggest the police report is most authoritative and many copies are on the net. CNN reports:

  The victim finally regained consciousness about 4:15 a.m. at a hospital. Later that morning, doctors said her blood alcohol concentration was 0.12% -- and estimated her intoxication level at the time of the assault to be 0.22%.

  Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 17:31, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
• Here is what the jury was told: "Alice King — a supervising criminalist for Santa Clara County — also testified. Given nominally hypothetical situations corresponding to Doe and Turner on Jan. 18, King estimated that the Doe and Turner’s blood alcohol content (BAC) levels at 1 a.m. would have been .242 to .249 and .171, respectively."[1] I do not understand why they would not take a blood sample from an unconscious person at the time to determine drug/poisoning risk. I do not understand why Turner's blood was not sampled in the jail. These things are mysteries. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 17:43, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
• The agreement among all sources is this approximation, worded by The Atlantic: "Turner’s blood-alcohol level was double the legal limit at the time, and the woman’s was three times the legal limit."[2] I suggest we use the less precise statement rather than the higher precision with less accuracy. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 18:27, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Strictly speaking 'legal limit' is the legal limit for 21 and older driving (.08%). For Turner who was under 21 .01% would have been the legal limit for driving. Neither were driving though Turner was drinking illegally. It is a pity newspapers aren't clearer on their terminology. Erp (talk) 05:02, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it is an odd reference for this context. But notice, when the doctor is quoted, the number for Doe is not the same as when Alice King is quoted. Maybe the papers are using this comparison to avoid the contradictions in numbers. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 07:00, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I would report the court testimony (Alice King) as the most reliable especially if it was not challenged by the other side during the trial. It is the least likely to suffer from clerical/reporting error and most likely to be checked by the best experts. BTW I note that a court order might have been needed to take a blood test of Turner and they may have wanted consent before taking a sample for the most reliable testing from Doe hence the delay. Erp (talk) 13:16, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Given that most documents in this case are sealed and only accessible by select trusted media groups how feasible would it be for the entire attached blood report by Alice King to be public domain for us to reference? I would lime to know things like when good was drawn, who took it, when it was tested, who tested it, when King made each estimate, her mathematical explanations of the estimates, and also when each of them had their drinks since that would also reflect when it was metabolized. Things like this would enhance the article. I do recall some testimony about number/type of beverage and will add that in but the more the better.

Most notably, Turner is described vomiting, but I can't recall if Emily was. Was there evidence of any drinking in the alley? Alcohol drunk immediately before the Swedes' arrival would not have been metabolized so as to intoxicate yet could have metabolized afterward to affect later readings. Was the dumpster searched for discarded bottles and either's DNA? Ranze (talk) 05:46, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

This is a promise of performing original research. Wikipedia is not the place for speculatively reinvestigating using primary sources. You've been reminded of that several times. Please stop.--Carwil (talk) 15:43, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

@Carwil: the warning you leave here and on my talk contains false information, please be cautious in what you accuse others of. Your assumption of bad faith could lead others to make similar assumptions in return.

Citing primary sources is not original research. Citing primaries is entirely acceptable for conveying basic information such as numerical test results.

My inquiry is also broad in that I would also be haply if we located a secondary source on the info.

As to what I am asking about, a secondary source did report that Doe vomited in the ambulance so that answers my inquiry. I will be adding this to the article later as it is useful to know that both people of interest vomited prior to blood testing.

Adding the times of vomiting and blood test would be useful if that can be gleaned from the initial complaint. We would only need secondary sources to interpret the meaning of those tests, not to cite them.

A lot of people need to back off on primary source witch hunting. They aren't the boogie man, they are completely acceptable sources to cite for raw data, so long as it isn't used to interpret the data. Ranze (talk) 01:38, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Except an article writer for most encyclopedias isn't suppose to use primary source material extensively (except for checking the accuracy of her secondary sources, did they quote the primary source correctly and in contest [e.g., if a newspaper article reports that the accused was green-eyed and make a big thing of this and the court records, etc. say he was brown eyed, I would be wary of using that source) and this goes double for a wikipedia article where the writers aren't acknowledged experts (this is in contrast to some specialist encyclopedia where the author(s) are acknowledged experts). Nor are we investigative reporters. We can link to major primary sources (e.g., an article about an out-of-copyright book linking to a site containing the text of the book); we can use a newspaper or journal article written by an investigative reporter or scholar. The feeling I get is that you want to write an investigative article or scholarly paper. There are both honorable pursuits. Write it, get it published in a respected source, and it can be used (though at that point you would have a conflict-of-interest for editing this article so should be extra careful) Erp (talk) 02:25, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Erp is right, Ranze. We can report the sampled BAC and the criminalist's determination of the BACs. We may also confirm these numbers with primary sources (and include specifying information that the expert provided). But we are bound by policy not to engage in original research. What's more, there's no discussion that I've seen of the range of details you want to bring in (vomiting, etc.) in any RS. Nor is it especially relevant or encyclopedic. People with a curiosity are welcome to read the public documents you mention but this is not a posting board for our analyses of them. Wikipedia is not a place for independent reanalysis of primary materials. That limitation is doubly in force for articles on living persons.--Carwil (talk) 02:10, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Vomiting is mentioned here, you didn't read as many sources as I did. Rest assured I have no intent of adding any un-sourced information, this is not original research. Ranze (talk) 03:10, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Let me clarify: the source you cited mentions vomiting as reported by a witness in trial testimony. It also mentions expert Alice King's calculation regarding the two BACs. It does not speculate on whether King's assessment is or is not accurate, nor make any argument concerning the effect of vomiting on BAC. If you combone these two facts into an argument, you are engaging in SYNTH. If you make any claim about Alice King being accurate or not, that is not advanced in a RS, you are engaging in OR.

Moreover, any unnecessary lurid details, whether based on trial testimony or the defendants' statements should be done with caution and reserve. Does the victim vomiting clarify anything? Is that something in dispute among reliable sources? What exactly? If not, it doesn't belong here. If so, we weight it against her presumption of privacy.--Carwil (talk) 05:27, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

@Carwil: yes, so vomiting is mentioned, not sure what you're getting at. You say 'calculating' but that is not a synonym for 'estimating'. The full sentence is:

Given nominally hypothetical situations corresponding to Doe and Turner on Jan. 18, King estimated that the Doe and Turner’s blood alcohol content (BAC) levels at 1 a.m. would have been .242 to .249 and .171, respectively.

Calculate and estimate are not always-synonymous. Calculate implies mathematical processes, estimations can be done with or without specific mathematical processes.

I am not engaging in any speculations as to King's accuracy, I'm merely reporting what the source says: that the estimates are based on hypothetical situations. I didn't call Alice an inaccurate person, I think she probably did the best she could with what she was told.

I am not combo-ing or synthesizing anything. I simply think we should present all those facts. I haven't added anything about proximity of vomiting to blood testing having a possible influence on that. If readers come to the same realization, fine, but I have no intention of putting it in the article unless a reliable source points it out as notable.

Emily vomiting certainly clarifies things. 2 of the charges are based on charges of assaulting a person who is intoxicated or unconscious. Vomiting is something related to intoxication (drunk people vomit) and witnesses saying she vomited unassisted is related as evidence of the level of consciousness which existed in the pre-ambulancing period.

If there's dispute about the vomiting then please introduce it, I'd love to hear contradicting viewpoints. Is someone else at the scene saying they saw someone help her vomit, or that she never vomited?

I'm not sure how you would weight vomiting in an ambulance with a paramedic and police officer nearby as being an intrusion of her privacy or 'lurid'. Compare this to the graphic details she talks about in the 12-page letter we reference. The secondary source report thought it important enough to note so that's why it should be conveyed. Ranze (talk) 06:13, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Sources and age of Emily

Does anyone recall the earliest source in 2015 to have stated that Emily Doe was 22 at the time of the incident?

The oldest reference I can find cited here is January 27 and doesn't appear to mention her age. Nor does January 29.

When we can locate this, would it be significant to mention how long the case was reported until this detail was released?

Do we know the originating source of this information? Ranze (talk) 02:29, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Does it matter how long it took for the victim's age to be published? Inicholson (talk) 03:04, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

It gives us a sense of how long people were thinking of 'woman' vs '22 year old woman'. That ages are given at all shows that they are of some import so the length it takes for them to be conveyed would affect when that impact happened. We can discuss the relevance of its inclusion once we find out when it was first stated. 03:33, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

By all means feel free to search through information yourself, but as 22 is well into adulthood, in my opinion it's not relevant so you'll have to make an argument for inclusion. Inicholson (talk) 03:43, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

@Inicholson: did some more reading. Jan 30 Palo Alto and Jan 30 SwimSwam no mentions, nor Feb 2 or Feb 3, or October 5. October 6 Stanford Daily only says 'young woman' and Palo Alto don't mention it.

I couldn't find any other sources from 2015 to check here. Leads me to suspect a possible 'age was not released until 2016' reality, but you can't really prove a negative and certainly the sum of sources we cite are not the sum of sources which exist. I'm mostly looking for 'age was indicated X date' and we put the earliest we know of and if someone finds one earlier we replace it.

Is it possible this 22 year data didn't get out until after the conviction and the victim statement made it famous? I wasn't following the case until around a month ago so I don't have a memory for details as they came out as others might. Brock's age being 19 has consistently been there since the start in several 2015 articles.

We list no Jan/Feb 2016 references. The earliest I can find in March is the 16th but Kadvany doesn't mention her age. 21 March 2016 is so far the earliest mention I have found. Knowles of Stanford Daily (archived Mar22) " the alleged assault victim herself, a 23-year-old woman" and Herhold of Mercury News (updated Mar22, archived April3) "I'll leave it to the jury of eight men and four women to decide just how unconscious or drunk the then-22-year-old victim was". I'd have to check time zones to figure out which article was published first...

This makes me wonder where Knowles and Herhold got the information though. Was it released some time prior to March 21st? Was it mentioned during the trial? It sounds legit since they're both being consistent about it but it still makes me wonder where it originated since Doe's ID is protected. If someone did debut it earlier I would like to use the earliest cite possible next to her age when it is mentioned in the article.

A possible candidate for earlier (using custom google searches for date ranges now) is March 18 (archived Mar28) but it says updated March 21 so Kadvany might have added that in later. I can't find an 18-20 archive to check what it looked like first.

Found something interested in the midst of this. If you search "Brock Turner, a 23-year-old Stanford University athlete" this phrase shows up all over the place. Getting 627 results for it. This is from June 2016 too. It appears to be placed as a caption under his picture. When we mention Brock was 19 should we maybe list (not 23) in parenthesis to correct the misconception that could occur from these fraudulent articles? Ranze (talk) 04:14, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

A quick check shows that the articles proper seem to give the correct age for Brock Turner. Caption writers (like headline writers) tend to not be the article writers. I would not add "(not 23)"; it will just confuse the article readers and was never a point of controversy. As far as Doe's exact age it probably came in the trial testimony. Both Knowles and Herhold as local writers for what was a big local issue from the beginning almost certainly attended the trial. All three local reporters because this is their home territory likely know far more information than they are reporting or came in the trial testimony, but, won't reveal it because it would reveal the victim's identity which is protected by court order. BTW it was known far earlier (certainly by Oct. 5, 2015 at the preliminary hearing) that Emily Doe was a college graduate with a younger college age sister which would normally indicate an age > 21. I'm not sure why you feel it is important to state when her age became known. Erp (talk) 05:17, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

If information is important enough to include (as these three sources did March 21st, as we did here) then when information became known is also notable. Do you recall which cite mentions this college graduate thing and sis being college-age? These seem worthwhile to include. Anyway I guess I'm curious if Herhold/Kadvany/Knowles all discovered this independently or if it's possible the publishing was staggered enough that one might have read the other's work and gotten the number that way. Without access to the original pre-update versions this can't be sorted. It being used in trial testimony would certainly settle the question. Ranze (talk) 05:54, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

The source is the Palo Alto Online report for October 5 on the preliminary hearing http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2015/10/05/woman-in-stanford-sexual-assault-case-testifies However you are still trying to do investigative reporting; I'm not sure how this is relevant to the article since there seems to be no major disagreement about her age. Erp (talk) 07:34, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the source, "an older college graduate" is still kind of vague though. 22 seems more like 'just graduated' not 'older graduate'. All I can figure is 'older' is in respect to the other teen college-goers like Brock and not in respect to other college graduates.

No, I am not trying to do investigative reporting. That would involve boots to ground or conducting interviews, I'm simply talking about the sources.

I didn't say there was major disagreement about her age, I'd just like to know when that began to be circulated and how long the public went without knowing. Ranze (talk) 21:50, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Prior meals

I am going to begin a skeletal timeline and tentatively add details supported initially by mention in a news article and leave a commented-out note about what page/line of the complaint PDF this is talked about until more specific 'to the spot' citation URLs are available.

I'll begin with something that does not seem controversial, dinner before leaving for the party.

This is mentioned in relation to the Does but off-hand I cannot remember encountering information related to this for Brock. Have any reliable secondary sources mentioned anything about the last time Brock ate?

It would be more balanced if this could be included for both parties. I don't want to be accused of ignoring information about Brock having a full stomach, I just don't know how to find it if that was the case. Ranze (talk) 20:13, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

What purpose does all this trivia serve? We know he was drunk. Really, enough with the obsession over details of intake and output. This is an encyclopedia article about a legal case. Jonathunder (talk) 20:36, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

As a heads-up, I do not understand this to be off-limits. The controversy surrounding this case and our dispute regarding the notability of various things is not a gender-related one. I am not singling out any genders for inclusion or exclusion, I am for the uniform inclusion of all notable parties, such as those interviewed related to the case in the complaint and classified as witness. This case is about assault not about gender identity.

I don't view this as trivia. Yes, both were drunk, but given that both had blood tests hours after the event, food affects the speed at which alcohol moves from stomach to small intestine (do you need references?) so they are useful details to include if they are supported by secondary sources.

special:diff/728993063 you removed a reliable secondary source including this information. That seems a bit over the top. If your concern is prose then you could have retained the information and converted it to prose and included it elsewhere.

Do you object to its inclusion in case details outside the 'timeline' you object to?

Also I don't see why you object to that, we have timelines on Wikipedia, for example the Timeline of the Egyptian revolution of 2011. I don't see the problem with including one here.

Did I not go into detail explaining what happened at the given times? Of course not. When I did that before I got reverted and accused of original research. The reason I included much less detail in the second pass and linked a secondary source was so that others could take on that role of elaborating on what is said to have happened at those specific times.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with beginning a stubby section and requesting it be expanded, particularly when I am co-operating in trying to introduce it gradually and reservedly, asking for others' input in writing it. Ranze (talk) 06:58, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Section blanking

@Inicholson: in Special:Diff/728834518 you blanked a section and lied in saying it 'added nothing'.

You also accused me of copy/pasting things, which is another lie. It isn't possible to do that with the PDF, it is scanned pictures which have not been converted to text via optical character recognition. I manually typed out the listed times.

You also lie in saying the entire section is a BLP violation. WP:BLPPRIMARY says "Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source" and the majority to all of the things there have been mentioned in secondary source.

If you think something has not, you could have just removed that part from the timeline, not removed the entire timeline.

If you are going to place the burden on me to show you where each line has been mentioned in a secondary source, I can certainly do that, but don't complain later that it's a nightmare to read.

How about as a compromise, I simply include the times, and rather than state how those times are talked about, I simply say 'this time is mentioned on page XX of the initial complaint' ? That way we avoid the pitfalls of how accurate paraphrasing the report is and simply direct people on where they can read the mention of that time in the report? Ranze (talk) 04:54, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

The event includes about 8 events, not 80. It is not that complicated. What about a little list that states:

• 11:30 PM X went outside
• 12:30 AM Y and Z saw Turner behind dumpster with victim
• ...
• 12:45 AM Police arrive and arrest Turner
• 3:30 am Victim awakens

The more detail you include, the more incomprehensible it gets. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 06:28, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I like including the times interviews were taken and evidence was processed as well, why not include all of it? Also 'awakens' is original research, 3:30 is when V01 (if we can't use 'Emily' or 'Doe' this is preferable to 'victim') first responded to police questions. Even by her own story she describes waking up and then falling back asleep repeatedly prior to this.

It's simple enough for people to comprehend the main events since they would be at the beginning of the timeline. All the interview/processing stuff would be at the end. Ranze (talk) 18:03, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

For future reference, @Ranz:, you may be sanctioned if you accuse others of lying. It is a violation of WP:AGF and other policies. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 18:28, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

It is not a violation of AGF to call out an obvious falsehood. A sectioning containing text is something, not nothing. Calling another editor's contributions 'nothing' is always a lie. It is a very rude thing to do.

Calling the 'entire section' a BLP violation is also obviously wrong. Even if supposedly it was 99% BLP violation (personally I think it is 0%) that would not be the 'entire' seciton.

If people do not want to be called out on lies they should speak in more neutral terms. I would not have said liar if more subjective terms like 'this section adds little' or 'this section contains BLP violations' were used, because they are not so absurdly extreme and obviously wrong. Ranze (talk) 20:08, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Your understanding is not correct -- you should read the complete WP:BLP policies. In particular,

Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses.

That is why many of your edits are reverted, over and over again. You are not following those simple rules about primary sources in BLP. The details of the police report are not written for publication -- they are the hasty observations of a cop, often during stressful, chaotic events. Wikipedia, in contrast, is a volume of well-considered, carefully digested facts, reviewed and edited in leisure. That is also why you must be very careful in calling others "liar". You may be mistaken as you are here, and then the crow you eat may be your own. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 20:40, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

@Sfarney: I question why you included the last line. I did not include date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations or personal home addresses. I did include the address of the crime scene (frat house, I don't know if that qualifies as a home or a business or some third thing) but only because it had already been identified in secondary sources, for example:

Kadvany, Elena (30 January 2015). "Stanford swimmer denies alleged rape in police report". Palo Alto Online. two students riding their bikes near the Kappa Alpha (KA) fraternity house on Lomita Court said they noticed him on top of the woman .. they found the woman lying on her side behind a Dumpster between the KA fraternity house (664 Lomita Court) and Jerry House (658 Lomita Court).

Do you object to the inclusion of things mentioned in secondary sources which are banned under primary source restrictions? That is why on second pass I made sure to check news articles mentioned these things too. Once they do, we are allowed to include primary sources to amplify it, like adding times, once the incident itself is no longer private.

Is there some other kind of personal detail you are talking about which is not mentioned in the examples? One form the complaint which is not referenced in secondary sources?

I do not agree with your generalization about incident reports. They were not all hasty, a lot of these were interviews taken hours later. The times they report do not seem offensive to include. What other source would we get for the time they dispatched, the time they arrived, etc.

I will reconsider what I said to this extent: those edit summaries were false, and any sensible person could see they are false generalizations, and I do not have an impression of Inicholson as being unsensible.

In contemplating it further, I suppose I should regard what Inicholson said as a flippant remark, one unsuitable for an edit summary but which many Wikipedians may occasionally make. If Inicholson wishes to not stand by the summary and offer a redaction and apology then consider my criticism redacted as well, and an apology offered in turn for over-reacting in reaction to an over-reaction. I imagine having one's behavior described as a lie hurts almost as much as having one's behavior described as 'nothing' / 'bad' / 'copying' or the mischaracterization of the entirety of one's work as a BLP violation when it isn't.

Given that much of what I included on the timeline is events supported in secondary sources, it is not a BLP violation to mention them. It only SEEMED like that because I only mentioned getting the times from the initial complaint, and did not clarify which news articles mentioned those events.

That is why I began the second timeline differently, making sure to include a news source describing the event before I used the complaint to add the helpful detail of the time it happened.

This is permitted under BLPPRIMARY. Revealing the time something happened is not a personal detail, times of day cannot be used to harm people. Or would it be known that you ate a meal with your family at 9pm ruin a reputation of having meals promptly at 5:00pm 7 days a week? Ranze (talk) 07:21, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Article Scope

The majority of this article is about the trial and reactions to events that happened in the trial. However the background information appears to be mostly about the perpetrator, or Stanford university. Are there any links between this information and the trial? --Kyohyi (talk) 18:12, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

All of the source articles begin with the background and build up to the trial and/or the sentencing. Every one. What kind of link would you like to see, other than the most natural of all that every source follows? 18:18, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

I suppose the relevance of him being a swimmer had to the trial or conviction, or how Stanford's sexual misconduct rate is related to the trial or conviction. I don't necessarily think there's a problem with having a background, but is the information in the background relevant to the trial. --Kyohyi (talk) 18:22, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Ouch! Yes, I see what you mean, and we do not have a name for the topic of this article. The real topic is the CONTROVERSY, not the trial, the crime, or Turner. The rape statistic at Stanford and the whole third paragraph in that section is not relevant to the trial. It would not be permitted in the courtroom and therefore could not be background to the trial. It is relevant only to "the controversy surrounding People v. Turner". One of the problems with this article is that it began as a controversial news story, then a biography of Turner, then coverage of the trial. In the process of morphing, it has grown a big footprint. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 18:58, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

statutory minimum

@Carwil: I know you didn't write the original wording, but this is misleading: California penal code does allow a judge to depart from the statutory minimum (two years for rape). It gives the impression that Turner was sentenced for "rape", which he was not. So Persky is not "departing from the statutory minimum" -- Do you have a suggestion for fixing this? Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 16:51, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

I've just looked into this, and unfortunately CNN's legal expert Cevallos is not totally correct, but seems to have done one of the few analyses here.

Turner was convicted under Penal Code 220 (attempted rape) and Penal Code 289(d) and 289(e) (sexual penetration). PC 220 carries a recommended sentence of 2, 4, or 6 years (California provides three recommendations, as explained here). PC 289(d) and (e) carries a recommended sentence of 3, 6, or 8 years. Penal Code on 289 is here. Cevallos took the lesser minimum sentence for attempted and said it was the minimum sentence for Turner; somehow "attempted" got edited out.

This follow-up coverage on Jeff Rosen's proposed legislation to eliminate judicial discretion correctly summarizes the situation:

"According to the lawmakers, current California law calls for a mandatory prison term in cases of rape or sexual assault where force is used, but not when the victim is unconscious or severely intoxicated and thus unable to resist. The new legislation, which was introduced in the state assembly on Monday, would eliminate this discretion of a judge to sentence defendants convicted of such crimes to probation… Turner would have faced a minimum of three years behind bars."

A common-sense reading of this Newsweek article gives us a RS citation for a three year minimum.

Additionally, we have one primary source (the complaint) that lists 3-6-8 years for the two 289 charges, another primary source (the law) that lists the same thing, and one analysis by an (admittedly involved) expert Michele Dauber stating bluntly:

"The California Penal Code prescribes a statutory sentencing range with minimum sentences of two to three years of incarceration for the crimes for which Turner was convicted."

This latter analysis comes in Dauber's letter to Persky before sentencing, which has been published here. Of course, WP:SPS limits the use of expert content: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." You can see her being quoted by RS in the "news" links on this page. I'm willing to accept that my judgment on which sources to use her will be questioned and encourage other editors to write this sentence.--Carwil (talk) 19:12, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Nasty problem when we have only primary sources and an expert who shoots himself in the foot. 20:43, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Here is a solid statement from Mercury News.[3]:

Normally, Turner would have been ineligible for county jail. One of the three felonies he committed -- assault to commit rape -- is considered a "serious crime" under the California Penal Code and carries a mandatory sentence of two years in state prison, when combined with the other two felony offenses. But the law allows judges to deviate from the mandatory sentence for certain crimes by making a finding of "unusual circumstances." The probation report, which recommended a county jail term, cited 20-year-old Turner's youth, high level of intoxication (twice the legal blood-alcohol level) and lack of a criminal record. Under the law, those are legitimate grounds.

Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 20:46, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

"Significant trauma"??

@Carwil: The medical examination included "significant trauma" including "penetrating trauma." In layman's terms, the perp was so rough and brutal, he injured the victim's genitals. This was not just an illicit feely (as I had previously understood) -- it was an attack (=="assault"). This may have been highly significant in the jury's decision. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 19:41, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Tagging

Ranze, what are you hoping to accomplish by spamming the article keywords? The only ones that don't read like the tag cloud for a porno movie are "laws regarding rape", and "blackout". Stop spamming that stuff. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Inicholson (talk • contribs) 23:19, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

That is not spam, they are all clearly related to the case. Special:Diff/728832330 you remove tags on the basis they are 'creepy'. That' quite silly. Creepiness is subjective and criminal cases often involve creepy stuff. Please restore that to the article. Your being offended by established facts of the case doesn't give you grounds to remove things. If you do not, I will restore them later. Ranze (talk) 04:54, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Do you really believe that "public urination" is an appropriate tag for an article about something this serious? Inicholson (talk) 02:57, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Any issue related to it is appropriate. Public urination has been mentioned in the media associated with this case. 07:23, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

At that point, you might as well start listing every symptom of intoxication that has been mentioned, which would balloon wildly out of proportion and are all effectively in the article already because *she was passed out drunk when he raped(and here I'm using the FBI definition rather than the legal definition because this is the talk page for the article and not the article itself) her*. It adds nothing to the encyclopedic nature of the article for the fact that a rape victim urinated(a common occurrence and actually someone that women are told to do in the event of rape) to be thrown without context into the article tags. Of course, I could be wrong; can you demonstrate other similar articles that link to public urination? Inicholson (talk) 14:31, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

@Inicholson: given that I've been told that we should apply BLP policies to talk pages, I believe it is inappropriate for you to falsely accuse Brock of rape like this, it would be good to offer a redaction and apology.

You also appear to misunderstand the context of the public urination, this is about what happened before the encounter with Brock, not after. That's why in her VIS she quotes a question from the trial about who she did it with (2 other girls) which is supported by all 3's testimony in the complaint. Ranze (talk) 04:19, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

notability of other cases sharing title

I'm still holding off from discussing this article a bit more until some discussion finishes, but am wondering about a few other cases and whether or not they deserve articles. A couple I saw as high-ranked results when googling the present location:

• March 1994 http://www.leagle.com/decision/19941867631NE2d1236_11780.xml/PEOPLE%20v.%20TURNER could be called People v. Gregory Turner

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

• August 1994 http://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/people-v-turner-31083 could be called People v. Melvin Turner

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL In either case it's unclear how notable Gregory Turner or Melvin Turner are... it seems both cases did get covered in the news but I'm not sure how widespread coverage needs to be for establishing notability of either case. Ranze (talk) 20:38, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Melvin Turner's double murder conviction carried the death penalty, which was overturned by the California Supreme Court due to concerns of racially biased jurors (later reinstated). The case set a precedent on the latter issue. While it's not clear if it's notable enough for an article (WP:GNG), it's a plausible search term. I would feel comfortable with People v. Brock Turner being the name of this article.--Carwil (talk) 11:58, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

BLPNAME re friends

We now have a massive amount of content naming other students who were indirectly involved in the inicident, including witnesses, friends, etc. These people have a presumption of privacy and should not have this case linked to their life:

• Bolton, Robbins, McCann, McElhone, Kremer

Per WP:BLPNAME:

"When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations, it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context. When deciding whether to include a name, its publication in secondary sources other than news media, such as scholarly journals or the work of recognized experts, should be afforded greater weight than the brief appearance of names in news stories. Consider whether the inclusion of names of living private individuals who are not directly involved in an article's topic adds significant value."

"The presumption in favor of privacy is strong in the case of family members of articles' subjects and other loosely involved, otherwise low-profile persons."

In addition to violating these third parties' privacy, it endangers that of the crime victim. Police, courts, and the media have all showed deference to her right to anonymity, and publishing the name of her sister and her sister's friend compromises it to no useful purpose.

Since Ranze and I are debating other BLP issues, I'm not going to boldly remove these names for now, but would encourage others to do so.--Carwil (talk) 22:14, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for that well-written advisory. I suggest only the names of Turner, the victim's rescuers, the judge, and other officials should be preserved by name, and the rest identified only by role. Should we include anyone else? Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 22:40, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

My opinion is that we err towards naming those people AT MOST, police/medics/friends definitely shouldn't be named. Inicholson (talk) 23:15, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Since this is an article about a case, name the parties (California and Turner) and the judge. Maybe the lawyers. Jonathunder (talk) 23:52, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Not the rescuers? Of divided opinion myself -- determined to be disappointed with either choice. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 00:11, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

The two main rescuers (there were some other students who seem to have come later to the scene but before the police) have been widely named and publicly thanked though they have stayed very much in the background for the most part. I would say their names pretty much have to be included. They were named in the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/07/the-swedish-stanford-students-who-rescued-an-unconscious-sexual-assault-victim-speak-out/) among many other major newspapers. Erp (talk) 05:09, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Agree to this list including the two main rescuers, who have come forward to be the subjects of press coverage focusing specifically on them.. Everyone else should get a presumption of privacy (including Brock's father who seems to have just written the judge, not written an open letter, fwiw). Prosecutors and experts offering their individual professional judgment should be named (e.g. Alice King). Those who simply provide care need not be.--Carwil (talk) 02:46, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

@Carwil: to go into particulars, I believe 'intentionally concealed' only applies to Emily Doe's name and Tiffany's surname. The problem faced here is: how do we define 'widely disemminated' ? Keep in mind that anyone who has read this complaint has had the name disseminated to them... man I feel lurid typing that, wish they'd pick a different verb.

Do we go by how many views the document has had? How many readers an article has? Do we even know if that traffic is tracked?

If we were going to rely on needing a scholarly journal to mention a name, that would probably exclude being able to mention Brock's name as I don't know if the case has been around long enough for his to enter any legal journals.

I think it worth pointing out that 'when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context' doesn't apply here: you lose significant concept by saying 'the friend' over and over, when they give different testimonies and do different things during the night in question. The value of clarity and witness discreteness is significant.

The only deference shown by police to Emily Doe's right to anonymity has been not to include her name, or her and her sister's surname. The complaint and articles about the case mention Tiffany so there is no reason to exclude that here when doing so is more efficient. The police also saw no risk in using the names of their friends, which is why they were not redacted in the complaint. The complaint we link is the censored version, all things that need to be redacted have been redacted. You're effectively accusing the police of not redacting enough information before releasing this to the media.

The police/medics who are named in reliable news reports should definitely be named. They all give distinct testimonies here so if you merely say 'police say' it gets very confusing about who said what. It should be made apparent which person is saying what thing. If these people had requested privacy then their names would have been redacted from the complaint before the media made it available.

Naming the 4 men who were pinning Brock is also very useful to the article since they give distinct testimonies in the event and play distinct roles in the event.

Anyway, since nobody is arguing we redact Brock Turner's name or the judge's name, tell me the least famous person you think should still be included, the criteria they fulfill to justify inclusion (wide dissemination) so I can compare that to the level of exposure of people you wish to exclude.

Another thing here, for all the accusations of 'violation', this all sounds like aesthetics: notice wording like 'often preferable'. Are we actually obligated under policy to exclude any of this clarifying publicly-available information (which is already accessible to any article reader by our citation of the initial complaint) or is policy just saying your aesthetics are popular? Ranze (talk) 05:11, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Quoted above is OUR style guide, not the guide for the LATimes or the NYTimes. All that you argue was undoubtedly considered when our style guide was written. Our job is to follow it. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 06:21, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

@Sfarney: our job is to follow rules, and to CONSIDER preferences vs their cost. You haven't addressed the other objections. Also 'the victim' is not the woman's name either so why is it acceptable to use that but not acceptable to put 'Emily' which is more efficient? Ranze (talk) 18:05, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

First, I do not represent a force of opposition to the text. I speak for myself and no one else, and I speak on the issues I am competent and willing to address -- and nothing else. Is her name "Emily"? Probably not. So we don't call her "Emily"? And we don't call her "X", or "Evangeline", or "Marvin". Is she the victim of the assault? Yes. So we call her "the victim". In this way, the average reader who skips through the article can understand the text. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 18:20, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

@Sfarney: the point remains, her name is not 'the victim' so the objection 'you can't call her X because X is not her name' doesn't stand. Emily Doe is a name more strongly associated with this person than "the victim". It is also more consistently associated with her throughout this case. Many old references say things like 'the woman' or 'alleged victim'. It is also not NPOV to call her this because it is taking sides with the jury and not remaining impartial. We should take care in doing this because

• (1) Brock Turner is a living person
• (2) He maintains his innocence
• (3) His lawyer has stated intent to appeal the case.

We risk doing harm to this person and the appeals process by speaking as if jury decisions are matters of scientific fact. They aren't, these are laypeople not reliable sources. The jury decision is an extremely notable event and we should report on that but I do not believe it appropriate to litter the article with 'the victim' constantly. It simple is not neutral. "Emily" takes less space and is neutral, and the Emily Doe pseudonym is this woman's WP:COMMONNAME. When something like that exists we should make use of it, just as we would make use of an actual name on an article with a known plaintiff. Ranze (talk) 07:29, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

"... taking sides with the jury"???!! The jury is not on a "side". In America, the jury is the decider of fact. If the jury had found Turner guilty, would you reject that verdict and still be calling him "the accused" and arguing NPOV? A thing done has an end, and we are now past that end. We are not libeling anyone when we state the crimes of which Turner was found guilty. The jury is not God and not perfect, but the verdict is the fact until it is overturned. The only difference between the two versions of the story, prosecution and defense, is whether the woman gave consent. That is the only difference. This is far less ambiguous than other cases in which the woman was conscious throughout. In this case, medical evidence shows she could not have given consent. As the recipient of sexual contact to which she did not and could not give consent, she is "the victim" under the law. This is not complicated, not ambiguous, and not open to argument. Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 21:24, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Legal fact and absolute fact are not the same thing. Governments can decide on different facts to assert which can differ from other governments or scientific bodies. I have no objections to calling someone 'accused' for the rest of their life if they were accused of something, just so long as it is tied to a specific past event. In this case since Brock's name is out, I would probably just use that. I believe you misunderstand the medical evidence. Even if one puts faith in the estimate of ~0.24 there is a distinction between legal consent (ie non-intoxicated) and absolute consent (agreeing). In other cases we do not consider consent under threat/coercion to be legal either, but it's still consent, just not legal consent. The problem here is that since Brock was also intoxicated, I can't assert he was able to give legal consent either, since the estimate for him is over 17x the legal limit for him to drive. "The accused" remains neutral and context-specific in asituation where more than one victim may exist. Ranze (talk) 04:15, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Ranze, name one reliable source stating that Turner did not sexually assault Doe. Brock Turner's testimony is not a RS, although it is documented here. On the other hand, a jury is legally empowered to make findings of fact on the elements of a crime. They did. Moreover, they concur with the conclusions of police, prosecutors, the SART, and the victim herself.

Turner is no longer just the accused, he is "the convicted assailant."--Carwil (talk) 12:27, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

• @Ranze: I would like you to give careful consideration to this question. Let me know what you come up with. Here is the situation. The Weekly World News suggests that Elvis Presley did not die -- he was abducted by a UFO and is currently living off-planet in suspension. On the other hand, all of our reliable sources state that Presley died a natural death. What would be a neutral view on this question? I offer some suggestions for you to consider:

1. One definition of "neutral" requires us to compromise on all facts. Anything may be true, or not true. Any statement of fact in an RS is only a possibility. Every dispute is a he said/she said, and we must divide the disputed loaf between the contenders. Presley maybe did, but maybe did not die, and we may see him again when the aliens decide we need him.
2. The other definition of "neutral" requires us to be neutral in our treatment of sources. All reliable sources say that Presley died. None support the UFO theory. When we draw up our list of acceptable sources (leaving out the Weekly World News) we find that the neutral position among the sources is a natural death.

• Which do you consider is the correct definition of neutral for our purpose? Grammar's Li'l Helper ^Talk 17:18, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

unconsciousness in lede

I still think it's not neutral for it to say that. We can communicate the status of convictions without having to take sides with or against the conviction. There are BLP concerns here and considering the case is under appeal, we shouldn't be declaring 'she was unconscious' simply because a jury agrees with the prosecutor. How does the article suffer from presenting this objectively as the jury's findings? Ranze (talk) 01:03, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

What would be necessary for you to be ok with using the term "unconscious"? Inicholson (talk) 03:05, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Untangling the redundant narratives regarding estimates of intoxication

In my opinion, the narrative about the alcohol levels at the time of the incident was extremely tangled. I believe this was because multiple editors were reading slightly different accounts about the same circumstances, but were failing to recognize the redundancies and differentially stated timelines. This was also due to at least some editors' unfamiliarity with alcohol level testing and the metabolism of alcohol in the body. This helped to cause them to confuse, duplicate and conflate accounts. They were making essentially overlapping edits. I have had extensive past professional experience in the field. I reread a considerable number of newspaper stories and reviewed the original documents in this case, where available. I reviewed and retained the heart of the standing citations, and have repaired the narrative to produce clarity. Activist (talk) 14:04, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Lena Dunham and other celebrity reactions

I think it would be useful, to cover in a section the celebrity statements made about this case. It helps to illustrate how much it has entered into popular discussion. For example this Tweet:

@lenadunham (June 8, 2016). "I dedicate this to the brave survivor in the Stanford case who has given so much to change the conversation" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 13 July 2016 – via Twitter.

Looking presently it has over 30k retweets and over 41k likes. It also prompted media response:

Friar, Christine (8 June 2016). "Lena Dunham dedicates sexual assault PSA to Stanford rape survivor".

She isn't the only celebrity to comment. This got mentioned by Nikki Glaser on her show Not Safe with Nikki Glaser and probably others whose shows I don't watch. There are many legal cases we cover on Wikipedia which haven't gotten this kind of mainstream exposure, so I think it would be useful to have a 'notable reactions' section.

If it got too big it could always be split off. Ranze (talk) 17:35, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 September 2016

"Prior to sentencing, the prosecution filed a memo with the court describing Turner's drug and alcohol history at Stanford and earlier in high school. 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." --In this paragraph, "excessive alcohol" should be listed first, and "LSD", which really shouldn't really included at all (nor should "marijuana extracts"), should be listed last. Listing it first serves only to demonize it further in the eyes of those who know little about it. I can also almost guarantee you it was not LSD which had any effect on Brock's actions that night, nor is it LSD which motivates people to commit sexual violation in general. Alcohol definitely, though. So yeah: "extensive drug use, including excessive alcohol, ecstasy, marijuana extracts, and LSD".

2601:19C:4680:2415:BDF0:9F65:5611:44E6 (talk) 00:01, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. KGirlTrucker81 ^{huh? what I'm been doing} 01:20, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Re "some time" and "several hours"

The exact times when blood was drawn from Brock/Emily are in the initial complaint. I added them a while back.

Why have these exact statistics been replaced with pointless vaguaries? Ranze (talk) 08:15, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

We shouldn't cite any court documents per WP:BLPPRIMARY. — Strongjam (talk) 02:23, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Possibly biased/uncited rant

Why is the below paragraph included? It reads more like a rant than an actual contribution to the article.RexPatricius (talk) 07:24, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

"The case has been used as part of an organized propaganda campaign by the international mainstream media in an attempt to generate rape hysteria, male hatred and misandry and mob justice - to the point of encouraging armed vigilantes to target the family home of the accused. This is despite so called "lenient" sentences being a regular occurrence in the legal systems of the western world, particularly for women who usually avoid any form of punishment for sex crimes, like raping young children. The extent to which the media is attempting to use a single legal case to agitate for an anti-male agenda has itself been ignored by the mainstream press, and cravenly, the supposedly "neutral" Wikipedia."RexPatricius (talk) 07:24, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 September 2016

I request that the 2nd paragraph be removed from the article. This paragraph was randomly added on Sept 5, in a blatant move to dissuade viewers opinions. It is quite obvious that it does not fit into the entirety of the article itself. I don't know if i am following the process correctly, as this is my first time submitting a edit request. If not. Oh Well. Notoriousac (talk) 07:37, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

People v. Turner, formally People of the State of California v. Brock Allen Turner (2015), was a criminal case filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court which convicted Brock Allen Turner of three counts of felony sexual assault. Turner was a student athlete at Stanford University on January 18, 2015, when he sexually penetrated an intoxicated and unconscious 22-year-old[1][2][3] woman (later called "Emily Doe"[4]) with his fingers.[5][6][7][8][9]

The case has been used as part of an organized propaganda campaign by the international mainstream media in an attempt to generate rape hysteria, male hatred and misandry and mob justice - to the point of encouraging armed vigilantes to target the family home of the accused. This is despite so called "lenient" sentences being a regular occurrence in the legal systems of the western world, particularly for women who usually avoid any form of punishment for sex crimes, like raping young children. The extent to which the media is attempting to use a single legal case to agitate for an anti-male agenda has itself been ignored by the mainstream press, and cravenly, the supposedly "neutral" Wikipedia.

 Done - removed by another at 07.35 - Arjayay (talk) 07:55, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Edit of "only"

The sentence "After only three months in jail, Turner has been released on September 2, 2016" includes an obvious judgment by an editor that should be absent from an ideally objective and unbiased source (implying). The word "only" should be removed to change the sentence to "After three months in jail, Turner has been released on September 2, 2016" so that it no longer reads like an opinion landmine of an editor jumping off the page at the reader, since the "only" garishly makes the article take the position that his sentencing was not sufficient, when an article should not actually take a position at all.

Dahuterschuter (talk) 15:56, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 October 2016

The Santa Clara County Bar Association and public defenders defended Persky, {noting} that the sentence was based upon the probation report as well as being consistent with similar cases, and stated that his removal would be a "threat to judicial independence".

There is a misspelled word in this sentance (noting). I marked it with { }.

Best of regards William The WikiPr0. 155.4.8.14 (talk) 14:00, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

What is the misspelling? PeterTheFourth (talk) 14:01, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't see the misspelling, but per WP:SAID we should be preferring a less loaded word. I've switched it to "saying". — Strongjam (talk) 14:15, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

25 citations in the lead

I am aware of WP:LEADCITE says. I feel that having 25 citations in the lead is a sign of this article being a low-quality article. This case is closed except for Turner's probation and there has been no recent news about that. If he does get accepted to a school or gets a job, then that should be mentioned in some follow-up section. The victim seems to be proceeding on with her life as a student. This article is supposed to focus on the court case. That can be summed up pretty quickly as opposed to the current state of affairs where lead is flooded with procedural details. At most, the lead should have one sentence on the publicity and one sentence about the stuff that Persky had to go through. Perksy was completely exonerated by the proper authorities of any wrongdoing. If those still determined to pursue a recall on Persky make any further progress, well, then that deserves one more sentence at most if it ever happens. Persky has his own BLP and that kind of stuff belongs almost completely in his BLP. Again, if the page title has any meaning whatsoever, this article is suppose to be first and foremst about THE COURT CASE.--185.55.65.228 (talk) 19:03, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Removal of sourced info

So I reverted edits by User:70.248.28.108. I kindly ask all involved parties to discuss the matter here first. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 23:42, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Seems unlikely given the user's edit summaries. EvergreenFir (talk) 01:00, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Sociological, feminist and academic analysis of case

If somebody wants to create a lengthy new section with such a title at the end of this article, I indicate that they are welcome to do so.--70.248.28.108 (talk) 00:59, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, no... That's not the issue here. EvergreenFir (talk) 01:00, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

two edits

@Erp: since you reverted I would like to know why you think:

1) we should only mention Doe's intoxication in the lede when we can just as efficiently convey they were both inebriated. Why are we leaving out Brock's intoxication here?

2) why we should state Doe was unconscious at the time of penetration when no medical analysis of her state of consciousness was performed until after penetration had stopped. Any such expressions should describe her state of being when actually examined and not indulge speculation about what it was when no medical experts were present

3) why we should use cluttersome phrase like "sexually penetrated with the fingers" when "digital penetration" is more concise.

We should take care to discern between the known facts of the case vs sensationalist claims. A court decision of what a jury finds probable isn't the same as known facts and media which cannot discern between the two isn't 100% reliable in such a given instance. Ranze (talk) 08:46, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

On 3 you omitted to mention that you also removed the last phrase "an intoxicated and unconscious" possibly because you wanted to link to an article on digital penetration which is solely about the consensual act and that plays down that this particular digital penetration was not consensual. On point 2, medical experts can extrapolate from later evidence much as they do when estimating time of death even though they weren't present when the person died. Given the court conviction, you'll need a reliable source to argue that she was conscious or likely conscious at the time of the incident. On 1 because the court case involves her being inebriated not him (being drunk is not a defense for sexual assault in California). His being drunk is described later in the article. --Erp (talk) 16:01, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I find your use of 'remove' misleading. I added "while both were intoxicated" at the same time.

The term 'digital penetration' or 'fingering' doesn't solely refer to consensual acts any more than 'sex' only refers to consensual sex. In hopes of balancing things, I added a disclaimer with a source source about instances of assault to the fingering (sexual act) article, so people don't get that impression. I believe now it would be okay to link the phrase digital penetration now that this is present.

I do not need a source saying she was conscious because I'm not saying we declare she was conscious. If medical experts made an extrapolated estimate, we should say that. Kind of like how we say that witnesses stated she was unconscious. We should report the facts directly.

I didn't argue that being drunk is a defense, just that if we can easily state they were both drunk, intentionally leaving that out is obfuscation. Turner being a student athlete isn't relevant to whether or not sexual assault occurred either but it is still mentioned in the opening, so clearly we are not forced in limiting the opening statement to such a narrow purvue. Ranze (talk) 01:26, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Lenient?

Please use the talk page to clarify why stating that Couch's sentence was lenient is POV or opinion when the sources - which you deem acceptable so have left in the article - make this very specific claim? Chaheel Riens (talk) 17:32, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

My explanation is in the section above, please actually respond to it. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:38, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Add Also, neither of your sources actually call the sentencing lenient. Their is expressed disappointment, and that they have railed against it. The only reference to lenient is that the defense sought leniency in sentencing. However that doesn't actually say the sentence was lenient. If there was direct content in those sources of people believing the sentence to be lenient we could attribute it accordingly. But the way the sources are written do not describe things as such. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:45, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Personal best swim times for various events and medalling achievements / representative honours

What are they? need to be highlighted — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.159.163.60 (talk • contribs)

Light and Lenient sentencing

Regarding these edits [4], [5] the issue isn't sourcing, the issue is Voice. Whether or not a sentence was Light ,Lenient, Harsh, cruel or appropriate is a statement of opinion. Even if we have sources calling them that, it is still a statement of opinion, so per WP:SUBSTANTIATE we need to attribute the opinion if we're going to include it. So adding lenient instead of light is not an improvement, and we have the same problem as before. (on a blp at that) --Kyohyi (talk) 16:21, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

No, we don't. If a multiple sources state that a sentence is light, lenient, or even harsh, then it is not inaccurate, or inappropriate for us to report that it was a lenient sentence, nor is it inappropriate to state that the sentence created controversy. It is just the same opinion that there was controversy to state that it was lenient. In your argument everything could be construed as opinion. WIkiepdia is not an encyclopedia - it's only peoples opinion that it is - ad nauseum. Chaheel Riens (talk) 17:42, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

No one is saying the sentence didn't create controversy so that's irrelevant. If everyone thought the sentence was lenient there would be no controversy at all. And no, not everything could be construed as an opinion. You saying "In your argument everything could be construed as opinion.", is a fact, and there is no way to construe that as an opinion. However your opinion that my argument everything could be construed as opinion, is an opinion (and a factually wrong one). It is CORE NPOV that we do not take sides, that we describe sides. If enough people have this opinion we should be able to attribute it easily enough. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:54, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Frankly I'm content with the current wording, and therefore see no reason to continue this. Your original edits removed the terms "lenient" or "light" altogether which would puzzle the reader into wondering why the two articles were linked. Apart from the fact opinion that the sentences were excessively lenient in each case there's no reason to connect them.

Sorry I couldn't use "opinion" as often as you managed though. I opine that it was most impressive. Chaheel Riens (talk) 21:38, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

context needed for unconsciousness statements

On point 2, medical experts can extrapolate from later evidence

This was mentioned to me above. I am interested in knowing what expert extrapolations were actually made. When and by whom.

Last year I added the detail about the 11/15 score by the paramedic, for example. That is actually a specific detail. The kind we need.

We know that estimates were made based in the blood tests taken later in the day. Can we find a statement attached to this where the technologist interpreted the estimated levels as meaning unconciousness?

Another issue of context is when. Unconscious when the cyclists arrived vs. Unconscious 15 minutes prior to that for example. When specifically. The problem with a generalized "while unconscious" is that could mean at start, at finish, or start to finish.

The state of consciousness when Emily arrived in the alley is a key detail that we need specifics for since it distinguishes between "he dragged her there" vs "she walked there" interpretations. Just saying unconscious doesn't answer that.

What are the most specific statements we can find in our sources about when unconsciousness began and when it ended? Do they come from primary, secondary or both? Does all coverage reliably reach the same conclusion?

My prior approach of "just leave the sourced specifics in" hasn't worked since everts happen and these vague statements that don't explain the event progression get added back in.

I am hoping we can discuss this here without engaging in personal attacks. I am not doing this to marginalize Emily or defend Brock. I just want to make sure facts line up with the article since I put it out of mind and end several months without checking up on it. Ranze (talk) 08:55, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Lede length seems excessive

The lede here can probably be shortened, but information in it but not present in the following text, should be preserved, eliminating any redundancy. Activist (talk) 04:35, 25 May 2017 (UTC) Can only an administrator now edit the article? There is a red text notice in the references, regarding the citation: Who is allowed to fix this?

References

--Activist (talk) 07:51, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 February 2017

Under the Victim-impact statement section the following sentence:

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"

should be replaced with this:

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".

Changes made:

1) Changed link for cri de coeur (a French term unfamiliar to most) from non-existent Wikipedia article to existing Wiktionary article.

2) Added full-stop/period after the sentence. 2405:204:1089:FC19:5430:F45D:9C00:3E01 (talk) 22:20, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

 Done--John Cline (talk) 15:01, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Quoting the New York Times may seem acceptable as some believe it's an unbiased source, however, the quote does not stand on it's own as very logical to those who know the facts a bit. "Emily Doe" is from an apparently very wealthy family, she was living at home in her parent's $3M house in Palo Alto at the time of the alleged assault - Brock Turner's family own a $300K house in Ohio- additionally, Emily Doe had the leader of the Recall Persky movement, a tenured Stanford Professor, as a family friend - Turner was a kid from out of town with no local connections.

Finally, if quotes about the Victim Impact Statement are going to be included in the article, then the statement itself should be examined as a primary source, and compared to other primary sources - ie, the police and forensic reports. In her Victim Impact Statement, "Emily Doe" implies Turner injured her - talking about all the bandages she had on - this is not backed up by police or forensic reports. Additionally, she implies Turner shoved pine needles in her vagina, apparently in pure sadism - there is no basis for that in any police or forensic report either. In short, the "Emily Doe" victim impact statement is highly misleading - it's pretty well know "Emily Doe" was a Spoken Word artist - a person who writes their own one act/one actor plays and them performs them - and it's clear her "Everywoman' statement follows these lines and strays from the facts more than once - this should be pointed out, particularly if the New York Times' misleading quote is going to be included.

Do you have sources, or should I just overrule you because it's pretty well known you're a liar and it's clear I'm the Queen of Britain?Terukiyo (talk) 12:43, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Michele Dauber's part in this deserves it's own section

Stanford Professor Michele Dauber read the Emily Doe Victim Impact Statement before Emily Doe read it in court, and sent it out to the media about the same time - she should get some credit for that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:cfd0:6e50:a466:dbd6:41dc:db9 (talk • contribs) 22:58, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Structure

shouldn't the various statements (Turner's, the victims, and any others that were given before sentencing) be in the Sentencing section? They are now out of chronological order with "reactions"... Jytdog (talk) 23:08, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Mdaub's edits

Mdaub has been editing the this page recently (as seen in the content I reverted here). I have some major concerns about these edits above and beyond the WP:MOS issues. First, their name suggests they may be (or related to) Michele Dauber. Second, while ostensibly trying to make the language more neutral, their edits are making things worse. Changing "man" to "male" and "woman" to "female" doesn't do anything useful, and broke references by changing URLs. Moreover, changing "sexual penetration" to "digital penetration" as well as "rape" to "sexual assault" is not constructive as the sources (and the statutes of California) do not use that language. Another issue is that Mdaub change the issue of alcohol possession to "a minor" but Turner was 20 years old at the time. EvergreenFir (talk) 05:48, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. I started the COI topic over at the noticeboard. Chaheel Riens (talk) 07:56, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

And for the record, I think 2601:647:4E02:4652:A93B:A85E:2725:828F may be MDaub editing while logged out as well. Chaheel Riens (talk) 13:02, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

While Michelle Dauber might have COI issues in editing material related to the recall, that doesn't excuse reverting her simply amplifying references and external links to the page. Chaheel Riens, can you explain your thinking?--Carwil (talk) 15:02, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

COI editors are strongly discouraged from editing those article in any fashion, even if the edits are seemingly innocuous. She can propose changes here on the Talk page. --Laser brain (talk) 17:11, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Carwil - as per Laser Brain, and taken from WP:COI: "COI editing is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. It undermines public confidence and risks causing public embarrassment to the individuals and companies being promoted. Editors with a COI are typically unaware of whether or how much it has influenced their editing." my emphasis at the end there. There is no guarantee that the supplied references and sources are not POV in themselves - and let's not avoid the issue that they appear to have been added by MDaub while logged out and without any discussion - despite having been asked multiple times, and in multiple locations. Chaheel Riens (talk) 17:45, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Language in the opening paragraph

(Please read the following in the most neutral tone possible; I don't have any hidden rape apologist agenda, I'm just trying to make sure the encyclopedia is factually correct-in a nitpicky way-and not going to get sued for defamation)

At the time of writing, the first paragraph ends saying that Turner "raped an intoxicated and unconscious 22-year-old woman with his fingers"; however, later in the article, it's made clear that he was not convicted of rape under California law (despite being indicted for it), but was convicted of sexual assault, which is a distinct crime in California.

It seems like the fact that the crime was committed in a state which uses 'rape' as a legal term, and that he was specifically not convicted of rape, might cause problems since it could be argued it falsely implies he was convicted of rape (and it also might unnecessarily confuse people who open the page looking to see exactly what he was convicted of and don't read too far). It might be best to reword that sentence to be more clear. Hppavilion1 (talk) 00:54, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

UPDATE: It appears that it used to read "sexual assault", but was changed to "raped" in [6] by User:Echerepko, in an edit with the misleading description "fixed typo". I'm going to send them a message on their talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hppavilion1 (talk • contribs) 00:58, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Probation ended?

Has Turner's probation ended? He was released from jail on September 2, 2016, and began a three year probation. The article reads like his probation is still ongoing. Bkatcher (talk) 20:32, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

We don't seem to have a reliable source saying he is finished with probation. --Erp (talk) 01:58, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Separate article for Chanel Miller?

Chanel Miller currently redirects here. However, with the recent release of her memoir, I'd argue she's becoming a public figure for sexual violence victims overall, which goes beyond this specific case. (It's also just somewhat icky for us to be redirecting the name of a person to the trial of their rapist.) Should there be a separate article for her? To avoid duplication of material, I'd imagine the article would be fairly short and would focus on her biography/memoir, pointing readers here for information on the trial. Sdkb (talk) 21:26, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree it's icky. WP:CRIMINAL and WP:BLP1E both state that the person needs to be known for more than one event. I'm not familiar with Miller, but you could try to work up a separate article for her in your sandbox. Thank you for bringing this to the group's attention.Fred (talk) 23:56, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

I have requested a technical move for Draft:Chanel Miller to overwrite its redirect to this article on the basis that her notability extends beyond WP:VICTIM and BLP1E. Enwebb (talk) 13:43, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

The move was done and Miller now has a separate article. Enwebb (talk) 14:54, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for putting in the work; I'm glad to see it! Sdkb (talk) 02:04, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Rule 4.414

Michele Dauber and the supporters of Persky’s recall often cited the judge’s statement during sentencing that a prison term would have a severe impact on the defendant’s life as scandalous, but this is one of the factors enumerated in Rules 4.413 and 4.414 of the California Rules of Court that judges must address in every felony sentencing and is part of the template of the Probation Department’s pre-sentencing reports. Thus, even if the judge had sentenced Turner to 14 years in prison he would have made-and been required to-that same statement and finding regarding a 20 year old with no prior criminal history (in contrast to a seasoned convict with a long institutional history). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.182.251.170 (talk) 12:10, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Politicization of Brock Turner case/Police and Prosecutor Misconduct during trial.

The point has been made that there was no rape - I think it's also worth pointing out that Turner, when arrested, was not charged with rape, he was charged with attempted rape, but two weeks later, Mike Kim, the lead investigator, swore a new charge of rape, though there was no new evidence to support that charge, and the DNA test results had not come back.

Then for some time after the DNA came back and proved there was no genital to genital contact, the DA kept the rape charge pending, which seems to be a violation of prosecutor's ethics - as the false information and belief statement by Mike Kim was a violation of his ethical duty to not present misleading information to the court.

I think an entire section on the politicization of the trial would be well worthwhile. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1702:1CD0:1710:5077:8E1F:A350:1C4A (talk) 02:38, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Victim Impact Statement Paragraph is deceptive

The section saying Chanel Miller's victim impact statement was "picked up" by media is misleading. In an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, Stanford Professor Michele Dauber stated she had sent the statement out to media with the help of one of the producers of "The Hunting Ground" a largely discredited documentary on campus sexual assault. The point being, the narrative in the victim impact statement was very actively promoted by Professor Dauber. The statement did not "go viral" on it's own. In this regard, it should be pointed out, the statement is addressed to "girls everywhere" at the end. That removes any doubt about it being a message to the public. If it had been written solely for Judge Persky, as Dauber claimed in interviews, it would not have been addressed to "girls everywhere" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1702:1CD0:1710:5077:8E1F:A350:1C4A (talk) 02:53, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

'Lede too long' tag

Currently the word-count of the lede is less than 5% of the article length - in other words, about right. It is the article itself that seems far too long. I cannot see what is so notable about the topic. Suggest that someone edits-down the whole article. Valetude (talk) 14:54, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest an alternative that if you think the article to be too long, you suggest where cuts are made. Given the level of attention the case received, it seems about right. Chaheel Riens (talk) 15:32, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm sure there is a lot of detail that could be deleted without weakening the story. Valetude (talk) 15:47, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

...specifically, material that would have been of topical interest at the time of the trial, but not suitable for retrospective, encyclopedic coverage. Valetude (talk) 17:55, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure we've reached the retrospective stage yet, give it another 5 years. Admittedly I think the lede could be tightened up. --Erp (talk) 00:06, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

which I've just done --Erp (talk) 00:45, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

I think the article ought to be significantly longer. The fact it goes into the recall of the judge in the trial, without going into how the recall was run, deceptive memes propagated by the recall proponents, etc, etc, etc, is a major omission in my view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1702:1CD0:1710:BD7F:DF3C:9FD9:F957 (talk) 17:29, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Drinks

Shouldn't the article also mention what the victim drank prior to her assault? (News articles mention four shots of whiskey, a glass of champagne, between two and four shots of vodka, and some beer.) 173.88.246.138 (talk) 23:24, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

What will that help the reader understand about this trial? EvergreenFir (talk) 23:29, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Evergreen - I really can not understand your post - are you saying the facts surrounding this event are not relevant? I can not see any reason facts are irrelevant, but to be very specific about it, there was, in the local media, for example the Stanford newspaper, a big debate over whether this was an assault or drunken hookup gone wrong. The extreme drinking of Miller makes her alleged consent to sex with a stranger seem plausible, at least to many people, and Turner's defense was she consented to him masturbating her. I would also point out here, Miller claimed to remember nothing of what had happened, to have blacked it out, as she said she had done many times before from drinking. To not explain that, and therefore, that she never directly accused him, is to leave out a huge part of why the case was controversial. In fact, looking at the article, that seems to be a huge hole in it, generally. I think her alleged lack of memory is actually more important than the imputed reason, but people want to know why. Yes, that should be in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1702:1CD0:1710:5077:8E1F:A350:1C4A (talk) 03:03, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Her extreme drinking makes her alleged consent impossible, instead of "more plausible", in my opinion. Someone that drunk is not capable of consent.193.190.253.144 (talk) 15:24, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

The facts mentioned in the article should be those that are given relevant coverage in sources, per not only WP:V, WP:CS, WP:NOR, etc., but also WP:UNDUE, WP:NOTSOAPBOX, etc. If the sources indicate that this or any other things she did were brought up as a significant point in the case, then the article should reflect that. If not, then it doesn't go in the article. Nightscream (talk) 17:04, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

While you're citing guidelines, you might try Wikipedia:Notability, which says that notability requirements don't apply to content within articles. It would be best, though, to remove things cited to primary sources (such as court documents) that didn't get any secondary-source coverage, particularly when writing about living persons (even though this isn't a BLP). ~Anachronist (talk) 04:45, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

"The rapist brock turner" redirect?

On reddit, and on social media in general, Brock Turner is referred to as "The rapist Brock Turner" or "The Stanford rapist Brock Turner". This article already redirects a search for brock turner to this article, I think it should also redirect for "rapist brock turner". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:1805:C35A:BCAC:34FF:8471:17A (talk) 23:36, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Reaction Section POV

The reaction section features comments, quotes, etc., almost entirely supportive of the ruling, with the only critical reactions being included being of the father's '20 minutes of action' letter. It even goes as far as to paraphrase and cite articles that critiqued the decision as too harsh. Meanwhile, a quick web search brings up several examples of extensive critiques of the ruling. The reaction section fails to include some of the most reported-on reactions to the trial, including backlash against judge's assertion that a prison sentence could have an undue "severe impact" on Turner, or the public reaction to the Rasmussen letter. Overall, it seems very slanted in Persky's favor, particularly when it comes to the recall section. --PaKYr (talk) 05:25, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Then balance it out. If there are dissenting opinions from reliable sources that you found in a search, then by all means, add them, in accordance with WP:UNDUE. :-) Nightscream (talk) 13:12, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Would love too, but don't really have the time or wiki editing expertise to do so. I've been flamed for trying before, so I figured I'd just add a POV banner and hope someone more experienced tries to correct it. PaKYr (talk) 21:44, 5 April 2021 (UTC)