Michele Dauber, a law professor leading a recall effort against Persky, said she will continue to gather signatures.
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Judge Aaron Persky was granted his request to only preside over civil cases by Santa Clara County Presiding Judge Rise Pichon, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
Critics saw the comment as further evidence of Persky’s leniency toward sex offenders.
Assignment changes are typically implemented in January, but Pichon said this move was possible due to a request from Chiarello to relocate.
The new assignment will not be permanent.
But the transfer did nothing to temper the criticism. “He can still transfer back to hearing criminal cases any time he chooses”, she said in a statement.
In June, Persky sentenced another defendant facing similar charges to three years in prison – but that defendant was 32-year-old Raul Ramirez, who is Latino. But in his remarks, the judge said he was concerned about the “severe impact” a longer sentence would have on Turner’s life.
The case sparked a national debate on college drinking and sexual assault.
Persky’s sentencing of Turner was widely denounced.
Because of the outcry, California lawmakers are considering a bill that would impose minimum sentences for sexual assaults committed on an unconscious or severely intoxicated person. He and other attorney’s told the Guardian that other factors played a part in Ramiriz receiving the harsher ruling, including that he was very poor, that California treats unconscious sexual assault victims differently from conscious victims, and that Perskey played a passive role in the plea agreement reached between Ramiriz’s attorney’s and prosecutors.
But the Turner case has also cast a dark shadow over Persky’s court.
Earlier this summer, prosecutors filed a peremptory challenge that kept him from presiding over a preliminary hearing for a Kaiser Permanente surgical nurse accused of sexually assaulting a sedated woman. Judge Persky said he and his family were exposed to publicity surrounding the new case, which resulted in “a personal family situation”.
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Persky was expected to decide on Thursday whether to reduce a plumber’s felony conviction for possession of child pornography to a misdemeanor. Furthermore, judicial bias is just as serious regardless of whether a case is civil or criminal.
