Peek, I relate.... I remember college, the idiot binge drinking girls that barely could walk home from the bar. The parties where those girls would drink so irresponsibly that they didn't know their heads from their asses, sometimes literally considering the shit that kept coming out of their mouths.

I was a bartender, a spectator to this spectacle. I saw the lack of self preservation, self control and too much self indulgence.

Thankfully I wasn't ever a 'victim' of any kind of assault, although I walked around with a posture that said, I am self aware, I will fight for my life, and I am a terrible target, so I was always left alone. But I was taught these things, I was taught that you don't over drink and you don't walk around alone at night unless you are ready to defend yourself, that means don't be so wasted you pass out or fall down so much you look like an easy target. I don't think children are taught these things anymore, because their parents want to protect them. In my opinion, I think they do more harm than good when they don't let kids fail and make mistakes and screw up and do stupid things when they are younger, so when they are unleashed at college at a tender age of 17 or 18 they are ill equipped to deal with the bad things and people in this world.

The girl in this case, from what I read, said that she just over did it a bit when she first got there and hadn't eaten anything or whatever her excuse was. Those choices she made were all hers and there were consequences for those lapses in judgement. I am not saying she deserved to be raped, no one does, but she didn't get there because someone forced those drinks down her throat on an empty stomach. No he should have more respect for his fellow human being, but she should also have more respect for herself too. Because as the law of relativity says, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, such is nature, such is life.

What ever we want to say about this and cases like this involving alcohol / drugs, I do object to trashing victims . It does no one any good and just reminds me of the 'old days' when " she must have wanted it" somehow made blaming the victim Okay because of some thing the (bad) girl did showed she 'deserved what she got."
Kids make mistakes. It doesn't mean the girl deserved to be raped when she was passed out and unable to 'consent' to whatever someone else decided to do to her when she 'lacked self preservation' skills or some girl as you say attended "The parties where those girls would drink so irresponsibly that they didn't know their heads from their asses, sometimes literally considering the shit that kept coming out of their mouths." Just saying JanetM

Janet don't twist my words, I am not victim blaming... but I do think that they do have a responsibility to themselves to try to avoid situations where they put themselves at risk.

In a perfect world people could do whatever they wanted without fear of harm coming to them, we do not live in such a world and for every action there is a consequence. Part of becoming a survivor is acknowledging that you have the power to control the situations around you, that you are not helpless. Helplessness only breeds the victim mentality.

None of this absolved the boy from the crime he did, the violation of another person or any of that. For he is just as responsible for his actions as she is hers. He is responsible to bear the consequences of his actions and all the repercussions that come with them, including the registry for life if need be.

I understand the plight of the victim, they have endured a horrible experience, some of which may take years to recover from depending on the circumstances, for each person's story will be different, some will seem not as bad as another even though the way each person processes it can be vastly different and surprising. Part of that healing process is taking their lives back, which means that they also must take responsibility for their actions, how they conduct themselves, making sure not to put themselves in a position where someone else could do them harm. If that is victim blaming, then it might be safe to say that if you don't want to take responsibility for anything that you are perpetually a victim, never to be a survivor.

The boy should be punished, he screwed a girl while she was unconscious, that is a horrible thing to do to another human being, I don't care if they were going to be willing if they were awake or not, it is just horrid. He should receive treatment, for there appear to be some serious issues in how he perceives the world and his place in it. Shoot his father should also be in treatment if that is how he thinks men should proposition women...

I think the boy's sentence was appropriate and only wish most young kids were sentence to similarly "light' sentences. I even think maybe the boy was drunk too.

I am sure the boy was drunk too... another lapse in judgment... a reflection of what his parents taught him about how to survive in the big bad world.

I don't know how appropriate or not the sentence was, I don't think I have enough information to be able to say that what he got was fair or not. The media won't give us a chance to either. This kid was an adult, something his parents saw coming for at least 18 years, yet they did little to prepare him for the inevitable, being on his own and suffering the consequences for any actions he makes. If he was never taught to respect boundaries or other people then his act of assault was a ticking bomb waiting to blow up, it wasn't a matter of 'if" but a matter of "when" he was going to assault someone.

Clearly NONE of this is the victim's fault. I think we should all be in agreement on that. He chose a despicable course of action and deserves consequences imposed on him from the criminal justice system, not the "civil" regulatory system that enforces the registry. The point I was trying to make (which WiconsinRSOL hinted at) is that he will be a Tier 3 offender when he is released, which means his opportunities in life have come to a screeching halt. He wanted to be an Olympic medalist as a swimmer. Now he'll be lucky if he gets to make the trophies or medals working in a factory.

What I am about to say doesn't in any way condone Brock's actions. I personally would have been happy if he had spent a decade behind bars with intense therapy while serving his time. At the same time, when Brock is released, just like the rest of us, in spite of his atrocious actions, he should not be placed on a registry. He isn't even at the age where his prefrontal cortex has fully formed, which is one's mid 20's.

The trap we can all fall in with a case like this is to turn it into a competition of suffering. Many of our family members have done far lesser things and been given worse sentences, been falsely accused and handed down far worse punishment and so naturally we would all feel resentment towards this family. I think that's natural. I also think it is natural to feel resentful based on the socioeconomic means that this family to defend themselves had because not all of us are so lucky. But what if his dad joined this forum in 6 months, or less? Would we cold shoulder him? I would hope not. In the description of this board, it reminds us that we are all in the same boat. Regardless of the inequities and inconsistencies of our very flawed criminal justice system, we are all effected very similarly when it comes to the travesty of justice the registry represents. So I think we should focus on that rather than making it a competition of suffering and bad-mouthing those we feel are worse than our own children.

And by the way, I was guilty of this when it came to Galen. I admit I let my anger about what he did and how it will negatively impact the cause for my own child overshadow whatever redemption may lay ahead of him.

This is an interesting point of view regarding the legal defense and lawyers in this case:
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a59569/stanford-rape-case-defense-attorneys/

I really don't believe that the father of that boy is going to come here for support, he isn't the type to seek out help as his machismo will not allow it.

I am never going to agree that there is no fault on the girl here. She was older and graduated in comparison to the rest of the people at the college frat party. She admits to going there on an empty stomach and then proceeding to drink too much, too quickly. Maybe I was a bartender too long, maybe I watched too many women be careless with their safety just to get close to some man in a bar. But from what this victim has said so herself, she didn't help herself any by becoming so drunk that she passed out in a fashion that was more like alcohol poisoning. If you have ever seen someone get to that point, it is not pretty and it is life threatening. Without the rape, she did all that to herself, willingly too it would seem.

That boy did a horrible thing and if I were that girl's friend I would want his head on a spike, but I certainly wouldn't absolve her of all wrongdoing. Now had she been attacked on her way back to her home or something like that, where she did her due diligence for her safety, I would feel differently about her actions. But as she has admitted, she was burnt toast and blacked out/passed out. I know that many of you on here are going to disagree with me, but I am a survivor of abuse and what I have learned being a survivor that a portion of me allowed it to progress, even if I didn't feel like I had power I did, I just didn't remember that. I put myself in a position to be abused and for years kept myself there out of pity, out of duty, out of fear of change. Granted it isn't the same as a rape, not by any stretch of the imagination, but being able to move forward in life is being able to guarantee to yourself that the same thing won't happen again if you can help it. To do that you have to look hard for the things you did to get yourself there as well as the things that were done to you.

So don't take my wanting some responsibility to fall on the girl as victim blaming, only the boy is to blame for what he did.... she is only to blame for not caring enough for herself to not drink until unconsciousness without any safety net or plan with a friend to 'keep an eye out' for each other. We are never going to live in a world where there isn't violence against others, so we all need to prepare ourselves and our children about what the world and the people in it is all about.

I just got done reading the article... Excellent... It didn't even seem as biased as I have seen a lot of the articles about this subject have been.

Thank you for sharing

I agree. Well written article. Defense attorneys are not accorded the respect that they once were because they are all too often equated with their clients. Elizabeth Warren made this point beautifully in a speech yesterday.

The point she was making was that there once was a time when defense attorney and plaintiff's lawyers were appointed to the federal judiciary. Now that is a rare occurrence.

Being a former US attorney or circuit court judge seems to be the only way one can be appointed to the Federal Judiciary. Warren reminded us that John Adams and Abraham Lincoln defended people we wouldn't have considered likeable yet they became president. Can you imagine a former defense attorney today running for president? Wouldn't happen. People forget defense lawyers are there to act as a buffer to protect ALL of our constitutional rights, whether we are Donald Trump or Brock Turner, much as we may not like them.