While we all want to believe that the punishment always fits the crime when it comes to rapists, sadly, we’ve learned from recent cases that this usually isn’t true.
Last year, former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner was only sentenced to six months in jail for sexually assaulting an intoxicated and unconscious woman. He was registered as a sex offender for life, but was released from jail after just three months. Now a 20-year-old man from California is expected to serve only four months in jail after pleading guilty to raping his drugged 16-year-old sister.
Nolan Bruder from Crescent City, California, had reportedly given his little sister high-potency marijuana dabs and kept asking her to have sex with him, to which she repeatedly said no. According the complaint, she became so “out of it” that she didn’t recognize him as her brother when he sexually assaulted her.
In a report recommending he not receive probation, Bruder was said to show “no real remorse and seemed smug” in his interview. Prosecutors pushed for him to receive six years in prison, but he was sentenced to three instead and granted probation. However, the judge reduced that sentence to 240 days in county jail at half time, meaning his jail time could only be 120 days.
District Attorney Dale P. Trigg says that Judge William H. Follett said the “stigma” of being convicted and being placed on the sex offender registry would deter him and other would-be rapists.
“In a lot of ways, this case is more egregious than Brock Turner. This defendant took advantage of a position of trust as this victim’s big brother,” Trigg said. “He knew she didn’t want to have sex with him. She told him that repeatedly. So he got her stoned on dabs he gave her until she didn’t even recognize him in order get what he wanted.”
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“The message that this sends to our community is that sexual predators who get their juvenile siblings stoned enough can have sex with them without any meaningful consequence,” he added. “That is not the message I want to send to our community.”
(via CNN)