Aaron Persky

American attorney and judge

Michael Aaron Persky (born March 7, 1962)

is an American attorney and former judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court from 2003 to 2018.

In 2016, Persky gained national attention after his ruling in the case _People v. Turner _, in which he sentenced Stanford University student Brock Turner to six months in jail for the sexual assault and attempted rape of an unconscious 22-year-old woman, Chanel Miller , using the sentence recommended by the Santa Clara County Probation Department.

The sentence led to public outrage and was criticized by prosecutors and victims' rights advocates as being influenced by race, gender, and class bias. However, the California Commission on Judicial Performance found that there was not clear and convincing evidence of wrongdoing in their investigation of the case.

Nonetheless, in the June 2018 primary elections , voters overwhelmingly recalled Persky, with 61.51% in favor, making Persky the first judge in California to be recalled since 1932.

Prior to joining the bench , he practiced civil litigation for five years and was a prosecutor in Santa Clara County for six years. He also briefly coached girls' tennis at Lynbrook High School in the fall of 2019.

Early life and education

Michael Aaron Persky was born in 1962. [_failed verification
_] His father, Murray Persky, was a psychiatrist. His mother, Susan Elder, was a French teacher. His paternal grandparents owned a poultry business. He grew up in San Francisco, California .

Persky graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University

in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in international relations. He was the captain of the Stanford men's lacrosse team, a club sport . He received a master's degree in international policy studies from Stanford in 1985.

He graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) in 1990 and was admitted to the bar in California in the same year. After college, he played for the Berkeley club lacrosse team, for which he was also a captain.

Legal career

Persky worked for the law firm of Morrison & Foerster , practicing corporate civil litigation.

While in private practice, he received the California Association of Human Relations Organizations' Civil Rights Leadership Award for work on hate crimes , and the State Bar of California 's Wiley Manuel Pro Bono Award for his pro bono work for the poor.

In 1997, Persky joined the Santa Clara District Attorney's Office. In this position, he prosecuted criminal offenses which included violent sex crimes and hate crimes. He served on the executive committee of the Support Network for Battered Women and the Santa Clara County Network for a Hate-Free Community.

By 2003, Persky was a deputy district attorney in the Santa Clara District Attorney's Office and prosecuted juvenile offenders; he was also a member of the DA's Juvenile Wards Team.

Judicial career

In 2002, Persky unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Superior Court of California in Santa Clara County, losing to Ron Del Pozzo, who was also a deputy DA .

Persky received 102,801 votes (47.9%), to Del Pozzo's 111,679 votes (52.1%) for Seat 16 on the court. In his 2002 run, Persky was endorsed by the Santa Clara County Bar Association (and its Women Lawyers Committee) and by the _San Jose Mercury News _, while Del Pozzo received the endorsement of Sheriff Laurie Smith , U.S. Representatives Zoe Lofgren and Mike Honda , and the AFL–CIO . Both candidates ran a positive race.

Persky received an appointment to the court from California Governor Gray Davis the following year.

He is the former Chair of the Court's Community Outreach Committee.

In June 2016, Persky was elected without opposition for another six-year term on the bench. The vast majority of Santa Clara County judges—25 in total—ran unopposed in 2016.

Turner sentencing criticism

Main article: People v. Turner

In 2016, Persky received international media atten

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