Presiding Judge Rise Pichon said in a statement that she firmly believes Persky can continue in his current assignment but instead has agreed to send him to the civil division where he has served previously.
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6, Persky will be hearing matters in Department 22 in the Old Courthouse in San Jose, Pichon said.
A reassignment is possible due to the request of another judge to relocate to Palo Alto.
Persky did not respond to requests for comment.
Persky has been the subject of intense criticism since giving Turner what was decried by many as a too-lenient sentence for the sexual assault of an unconscious, intoxicated woman on Stanford’s campus last January.
Aaron Persky, who faced a high-profile recall campaign after the case, has now requested to be reassigned to the civil division in Santa Clara County superior court, officials announced late Thursday. Not only was he the target of an online petition calling for the removal from the bench, but Persky was also criticized by Sen.
While sentencing the plumber to four days in jail previous year, Persky indicated he might be open to reducing the conviction to a misdemeanor, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
The switch won’t affect a push for his recall in November 2017, according to a representative of the group Recall Judge Aaron Persky, led by Stanford law professor Michele Dauber. That same month, he was removed from a different sexual assault case after prosecutors complained.
“The issue of his judicial bias in favor of privileged defendants in sex crimes and domestic violence still needs to be addressed by the voters of Santa Clara County”, a statement emailed to The Huffington Post reads.
“This doesn’t change anything”, Dauber tells the Mercury News. In a brief statement he read in court Friday, the judge said he and his family were exposed to publicity surrounding the new case, which resulted in “a personal family situation”. The former Stanford swimmer was convicted of assault with the intent to commit rape of an unconscious person, sexual penetration of an unconscious person and sexual penetration of an intoxicated person.
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Mr David Becker, 18, a former three-sport athlete from East Longmeadow High School in western MA, escaped jail time even though prosecutors recommended a two-year sentence.
