I don’t think it’s fair to base the fate of the next ten+ years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesn’t remember anything but the amount she drank to press charges against him.
And now you're blaming the victim. His life is ruined because of HER decision to press charges?
I guess you don't know anything about the legal system. Yes, in a rape case, it's almost certainly not going to go ahead unless the victim is willing to testify, so they have a say in the matter, but you don't "press charges". You're watching too much TV... or maybe not enough of the right now. The police investigate crimes and the district attorney prosecutes the offenders. They determine whether to charge someone, not the victim.
She didn't ruin his life. He did. Why is his DECISION TO RAPE HER not part of this equation? Because he was drunk? Are you putting more responsibility on her decision to tell the police what happened because she was sober when she complained of being raped (p.s., the victim impact statement I read suggests that the two bikers found her unconscious, called the police, and she awoke in the hospital being examined by doctors and police. It's not like she even called 911 on the guy (which is not to say she would have been wrong if she had done so).
I am not blaming her directly for this, because that isn’t right
That isn't right; although you did, in fact, just blame her directly when you said "It's not fair to base his fate on her decision"
where do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campuses isn’t always because people are rapists
Rape isn't always because people are rapists. That's your argument? By the very definition of the words in your sentence, you are wrong. If you think this is because of political correctness, something is wrong with you.
What I honestly think is going on in your head is that you honestly think that both the attacker and the victim in this case were somewhat drunk and decided to consensually have sex and she just fell asleep midway through. Your letter makes it sound like you're treating this like a "oh they slept together when they were drunk and the next morning she regretted it and claimed he raped her". Except the girl was literally unconscious. You acknowledge in your own letter she passed out as they were leaving or just after. So it's not like she climbed on top of him, pulled down his pants, started having sex and then passed out. That's clearly not what happened here.
It is because these universities market themselves as the biggest party schools in the country. They encourage drinking.
On this point, you're probably correct, the culture of drunk college parties and party schools fosters this kind of shit and enables it to occur with much greater frequency. That doesn't alleviate the students from responsibility for controlling their own bodies.
This is completely different from a woman getting kidnapped and raped as she is walking to her car in a parking lot.
Again, you have a point. This IS different from a woman being kidnapped and raped in the parking lot. That is a potentially violent crime, because presumably the woman will resist or you will use a weapon or the threat of force. In this case, he used the vulnerability of the victims drunken or unconscious state. I personally do think that a violent component, in general, makes most crimes (not just rape) worthy of a harsher sentence (in some cases it literally pushes the crime to a higher charge). But that doesn't mean that this guy is not a rapist. It just means that he's a different kind of rapist. You might even think, as far as sentencing goes, his crime is less severe than a violent rapist. But he's still a rapist, and you seem unwilling to accept that.
That is a rapist. These are not rapists.
No, no - they are. That's what I was just saying there.
These are idiot boys and girls having too much to drink and not being aware of their surroundings and having clouded judgment.
This is true, but not for the reasons you probably think. They are idiots because they don't understand that they are responsible for their actions. And if they get so drunk they can't control their actions, that was their choice. That makes them responsible for those actions. And even the victim in this case regrets her decision to drink. Her impact statement makes this clear. She acknowledges that she was vulnerable because she drank. However, she didn't rape anyone. She didn't commit any crimes. He did. And as she puts it in her statement, he was flirting with lots of girls, including her own sister; and if she hadn't drank that evening, he very well may have found the next drunk girl and done it to her.
I’m not saying that is every case because I know there are young men that take advantage of young women and vice versa, but I know for a fact that Brock is not one of those people.
A jury of 12 people heard the facts of this case and decided that he is one of those people. Have you ever heard when people find out who a serial killer is and they say "he always seemed so nice"? The fact that you've known him for years and he's always been nice to everyone you know doesn't mean he is incapable of a crime or incapable of hurting someone. I'm not sure why you can't understand this.
He is respectful and caring, talented, and smart enough to know better.
He's also smart enough to know that if he can't control his actions when he's drunk, he shouldn't get that drunk. He was smart enough to know that when two guys approached him in the middle of the act, he ran away because he was doing something wrong.
I appreciate you taking your time to hear about my past with Brock and my opinion on the matter, and I hope you consider what I’ve said when looking into the sentencing. I would not be writing this letter if I had any doubt in my mind that he is innocent.
Your past is character evidence, but your opinion on the matter and whether you think he's innocent or guilty is irrelevant to this case. He has been convicted. In the eyes of the law, he's guilty, and it's not up to the sentencing judge to reconsider his guilty.