Dear Governor Brown:

As student survivors of gender violence and their allies, we respectfully request that you veto AB 2888, which would institute a mandatory minimum sentence for any defendant found guilty of sexually assaulting an unconscious or intoxicated person.

We know firsthand that the consequences of rape are no less damaging for a victim who is unconscious than for a victim who is not. We also know that mandatory minimum-term laws are a harmful, mistaken solution to our rightful anger over the Brock Turner case and the many others like it.

Over the latter half of the 20th century, mandatory minimum laws have led to overly punitive sentencing and prison overcrowding. While some support this legislation in hopes that it will address racial biases in sentencing that worked in Turner’s favor, mandatory minimums have in fact exacerbated racial and class disparities in prosecution. Further, mandatory minimums can deter victims—the vast majority of whom were assaulted by a friend, partner, or family member—from reporting an assault and seeking resources. When survivors do come forward, mandatory minimums deter prosecutors from pressing charges against particular defendants—namely those who, like Turner, are white and wealthy—and make juries less likely to convict. What’s more, mandatory minimum laws have failed to reduce assault. (Indeed, studies show that the severity of sanction does not deter violence.)

There are better ways to address our disgust with the Brock Turner case and our unjust criminal legal system than to expand these very injustices. The undersigned organizations have proposed many solutions to support survivors without relying on counterproductive mandatory minimum laws.

Accordingly, we, the undersigned survivors and allies, support Brock Turner’s victim, whose experience with the criminal legal system has hit close to home for so many of us, and ask that you veto the bill, AB 2888, that has been passed in our name.

Signed,