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That’s how it all started. Emily Doe was sexually assaulted by a former Stanford student Brock Turner. ‘Emily Doe’ is a pseudonym that she has chosen for her.
Doe was unconscious when she was assaulted and had no memory of the incident when she woke up hours later in a hospital.
Doe was told that her case was ‘very strong’: she had forensic evidence, sober unbiased witnesses, a slurred voice mail, and police at the scene. She had everything yet her case fell short. Brock was charged under three felonies, a charge that is usually sentenced to a maximum of 14 years in federal prison. In this case however, the judge deemed Brock to a sentence of 6 months – judge felt that Brock was subjected to enough scrutiny at the hands of the media and that extending the sentence would only ‘severely affect his well being’.
Doe felt defeated.
The morning after the sentencing, Doe obliged to publish her statement that she half-yelled at Turner. It was several pages long with harrowing details of the assault. It was published by BuzzFeed and received over a billion views overnight, becoming the voice of several women who have been, and are assaulted everyday.
Recently, when Glamour Magazine named her the ‘Woman of the Year’, she recounted her experiences in the aftermath of that letter.
Here’s all you need to know about Brock Turner’s six-month sentence and why banning alcohol has got nothing to do with sexual assault.
(With inputs from Glamour News)
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