Big headlines make bad laws
[...] when Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky sentenced former Stanford student Brock Turner, now 21, to six months in jail — he served only three months — for sexually assaulting a woman who was too inebriated to consent to sex in 2015, California lawmakers did not hesitate.
Wetterling’s disappearance spawned the 1994 national sex offender registry, advocated by Jacob’s mother, Patty, and signed by President Bill Clinton.
While critics say Persky went easy on Turner because he was a white Stanford student, Turner in fact will be serving a life sentence as a registered sex offender.
When convicted killers get out of prison, they face fewer restrictions than many convicted sex offenders like Turner.
“Few new public policies have become so widespread so quickly or attracted such unanimous support from across the political spectrum,” Eli Lehrer of the libertarian-leaning R Street Institute wrote in National Affairs.
Lehrer also argued “blanket residency restrictions” — such as California’s restrictions on living near schools or day care centers — “simply do not serve any valid public-safety purpose.”
Prosecutors had charged Turner with sexual assault because he digitally penetrated the victim before two passersby intervened.