Almost exactly two years after Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Stanford freshman Brock Turner to six months in county jail for sexually assaulting a drunk, passed-out woman behind a dumpster, voters gave Persky a sentence of their own: unemployment.The light sentence (Turner faced up to 10 years behind bars) sparked national outrage. But in Santa Clara County, California, it reached a fever pitch, as opponents led a pitched effort to recall Persky at the ballot box years before his term was to end.By voting day, much of the country had already moved on from Brock Turner and his crime; those who do remember it tend to remember a bad judge making a bad decision, and that's about it.But in Santa Clara County, the debate ultimately changed into something different: an argument about how to correct a mistake.On both sides of the recall question, there were county leaders who hated the sentence but had conflicting views on how to correct it. Recall supporters said they were exercising their democratic rights by recalling Persky; opponents argued a recall would endanger judicial independence and have the unintended effect of creating more bad sentences.VICE News spent the last weekend of the recall campaign in Silicon Valley, home of Stanford — and the case that made national headlines in 2016.This segment originally aired June 5, 2018 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
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