Brock Turner Loses Appeal of Sexual Assault Convictions

Brock Turner, the former Stanford University swimmer convicted of three counts of sexual assault, lost his appeal on Wednesday. A three-judge panel at the California Court of Appeals rejected Turner’s efforts to have his convictions overturned after he attempted to argue that there was no evidence to support them last month. The New York Daily News reports that Turner’s legal team attempted to argue that Turner had “outercourse” with the unconscious woman after a college party in January 2015, citing the fact that Turner did not undress. Turner also claimed that he “wasn’t aware his victim was unconscious and too drunk to give consent.” He served three months in jail in 2016 after Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky sentenced him to six months in prison—seen by some as a “wrist slap.” Close to 100,000 signatures were gathered for a ballot to recall Judge Persky, and he was subsequently voted out, the first to be removed from the bench through a vote in 86 years.