Revisiting Brock Turner

There’s a big reason we don’t have “justice” in the United States: justice is not objective. It’s entirely subjective. What is “just” for a crime varies from person to person. Many feel that Brock Turner should be dead. Not just in prison. Dead. Many feel the same about Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman despite the fact both have been ACQUITTED of their respective charges.

That’s why we have laws. Laws that objectively define a crime. Laws that mostly objectively define a sentence. Laws that are applied to a set of given facts to determine the proper outcome. An outcome in part determined by the representatives that we have elected to our respective state legislatures to define the crimes and define the sentences.

brock_turner_protesters

When people seek “justice”, the above is what we get. “He deserves worse” as many others have said. Armed protesters standing outside not just Brock Turner’s home, but standing outside the homes of people who have committed no crime and are not deserving of any punishment.

“Justice” is never objective. That is why we have Courts and Laws that are presumed to be. That is why we ceded our right to justice in exchange for laws while at the same time defining rights in how those laws are to be applied to all of us.

Due process has been satisfied in Brock Turner’s instance. He has been convicted, a sentence has been handed down, he has met the requirements of that sentence, and he has been released to probation where he will have additional requirements to meet to avoid going back to prison. If you don’t like how due process has been satisfied, find some other way to express that which harasses NO ONE. Not Brock Turner. Not the people who live around him.

And don’t pull the “you’d feel different if it was your wife/daughter/mother/sister/what have you” bullshit card on me either. While I’d likely be disappointed with an outcome, I also know that the outcome is not my decision. What happened with Turner is not our decision.

For fuck’s sake, stop trying to throw everyone’s rights under the bus simply because you don’t like one particular outcome.