Inspiration - Brock Turner

I decided to look into the largely talked about criminal case involving Brock Turner - a Stanford student charged with sexual assault. I thought that this case fitted in well with the research I did of the documentary film 'The Hunting Ground'.


The People V. Turner criminal case was filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court which convicted Brock Allen Turner of three counts of felony sexual assault. Turner was a student athlete at Stanford University on January 18, 2015, when he sexually penetrated an intoxicated and unconscious 22-year-old woman with his fingers.

Turner was apprehended by two Stanford international students from Sweden, who testified that they intervened because the woman appeared to be unconscious. As they approached, Turner fled. The two men gave chase and restrained Turner until police arrived to take him in custody. The police arrested him on Stanford's campus, and booked him into the Santa Clara county jail on suspicion of attempted rape and penetration with a foreign object. He was released the same day after posting $150,000 bail.

Turner was indicted on January 28, 2015, on five charges; two for rape, two for felony sexual assault, and one for attempted rape. He was arraigned on 2nd February, 2015, pleading not guilty on all five charges. On October 7, 2015, after reviewing the results of DNA tests, the two rape charges were dropped by prosecutors. The trial began on March 14, 2016 and concluded on March 30, 2016, with Turner's conviction on the three remaining charges of sexual assault. The convictions carried a potential sentence of fourteen years in prison. Prosecutors recommended six years in prison while probation officials recommended a moderate sentence. On June 2, 2016, Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Turner to six months to be followed by three years of probation. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender and participate in a sex offender rehabilitation program.

In the immediate aftermath of the case, widespread public criticism emerged accusing Judge Aaron Persky of judicial bias in favour of male and class privilege leading to campaigns for his recall or resignation.

We used this case as inspiration for our teaser trailer narrative as we were intrigued to focus on the problem that occurs worldwide where justice isn't served to victims as people such as Brock Turner are not appropriately punished. In addition, we were inspired by the side to this case where opinions where divided as to whether or not Turner did commit the crimes, even with the significantly large amount of evidence. The large media backlash was also key in inspiring a narrative for our teaser trailer as the idea of various media platforms portraying their own personal image of Turner interested us.