California Attorney General Kamala Harris speaks at the Annual Beat The Odds Awards. (Getty)
California Attorney General and senate candidate Kamala Harris has weighed in on the controversial Stanford rape case.
Harris recently questioned the decision to give Brock Turner a six-month jail sentence after he was was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious 23-year-old woman. Harris says she does not believe the victim’s voice was heard.
“When someone is facing a 14-year [maximum sentence], which is what I believe was the exposure in this case, there has got to be extraordinary mitigating facts to reduce it down to what I believe ended up being six months,” Harris said. “And I don’t know if the facts actually merit that kind of mitigation.”
Prosecutors in the case were hoping for a six-year sentence for Turner. Instead, the Stanford student, who has been convicted on three counts of felony assault, was given six months in jail because, as the judge put it, “a prison sentence would have a severe impact on him.”
Kamala Harris is currently running for the California senate seat vacated by Senator Barbara Boxer. She’ll be competing against another Democrat, Loretta Sanchez, in the general election.
