Brock Turner's lawyer tells appeals court his client only wanted 'outercourse' with victim
Mugshot of Brock Turner/Wikimedia Commons.
The lawyer for former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner told a California appeals court on Tuesday that it should overturn his client’s attempted rape conviction because Turner’s intent was “outercourse” rather than “intercourse.”
At least one justice appeared skeptical of the argument by lawyer Eric Multhaup, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
Multhaup had defined outercourse as sexual contact while fully clothed. Turner had all his clothes on when two graduate students spotted him behind a dumpster atop an unconscious woman who was patrially clothed.
“I absolutely don’t understand what you are talking about,” said Justice Franklin Elia. The law “requires the jury verdict to be honored.”
Multhaup also appeared to raise the issue of consent when he argued there was no evidence pointing to the moment the victim lost consciousness, according to coverage by the Stanford Daily.
Turner had served three months of a six-month sentence for attempting to rape an intoxicated person and digital penetration. The attempted rape conviction requires Turner to register as a sex offender.
The judge who imposed the sentence in June 2016 was ousted in a recall election two years later amid criticism that Turner’s sentence was too short.
