The Ultimate Question

What really happened between Brock Turner and Chanel Miller during and after a fraternity party at the Kappa Alpha fraternity house on the Stanford University campus the weekend of January 17-18, 2015? Anyone who has children in college or destined for college, whether sons or daughters, should be terrified of the contradictions on college campuses and in the legal system. This analysis begins with the thoughtful, fair and balanced discussion of the Miller/Turner matter contained in Malcolm Gladwell’s recently published book, Talking to Strangers.

“[Miller] has no memory of meeting Brock Turner, no memory of whether she did or didn’t dance with him, no memory of whether she did or didn’t kiss him, did or didn’t agree to go back to his dorm, and no memory of whether she was a willing or unwilling participant in their sexual activity. Did she resist when they left the party? Did she struggle? Did she flirt with him? Did she just stumble, blindly, after him? We’ll never know. After the fact, when she was sober, Doe was adamant that she would never have willingly left the party with another man. She was in a committed relationship. But it wasn’t the real [Miller] who met Brock Turner. It was drunk and blacked-out [Miller], and our drunken, blacked-out selves are not the same as our sober selves.” [Talking to Strangers, emphasis added].

The catastrophic outcome of the evening for Miller and Turner was agonizingly predictable considering the circumstances and context:

“Brock Turner was asked to do something of crucial importance that night – to make sense of a stranger’s desires and motivations. That is a hard task for all of us under the best circumstances, because the assumption of transparency we rely on in those encounters is so flawed. Asking a drunk and immature nineteen-year-old to do that, in the hypersexualized chaos of a frat party, is an invitation to disaster.” [Talking to Strangers, emphasis added]

Choices and Consequences

A responsible, proactive parent teaches her or his children that choices have consequences. A necessary corollary is that all of us are accountable for our decisions.

The subject matter of this essay is an analysis of the consequences for the choices made by Miller and Turner the evening the two of them voluntarily got together at the KA party and afterward.

Choices Have Consequences, by Tom Lallas 

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Alcohol Use and Abuse on College and University Campuses: A core issue associated with the Brock Turner case is the rampant use and abuse of alcohol on college and university campuses. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a college freshman’s first six weeks of college life, stand out as a time of harmful alcohol intake and its resultant undesirable effects and events. Studies show that approximately 50% of student sexual assaults involved alcohol. Of these, 46% of the victims had ingested alcohol, as did 69% of the perpetrators.

Alcohol-induced Blackout Amnesia: According to court documents, Emily Doe had a history of alcohol-induced blackout amnesia. Alcohol-induced blackout, a form of anterograde amnesia, is typically experienced during binge drinking when an individual’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) quickly rises to approximately 0.14 g/dL (0.14%) or higher through consumption of a high quantity of alcohol in a short amount of time…In blackout amnesia, the individual can have the appearance of consciousness—but will have no memory (en bloc), or only partial memory (fragmentary), of what occurred during the period of blackout… Emily Doe stated to police that after drinking four shots of whiskey at home before attending the Stanford fraternity party, “She felt kind of buzzed but was coherent and able to function.” In California, a drinker is legally intoxicated when a BAC reaches 0.08 or higher. Emily Doe’s extrapolated BAC was approximated by Alice King, Santa Clara County supervising criminologist, to be 0.242 to 0.249% –about three times the legal limit. Turner’s BAC, extrapolated was estimated at 0.171%.

“A blackout is when you don’t remember what happened. You can appear to be completely awake. An observer can’t tell when someone is in the midst of not forming a memory.” This is relevant because Turner would not have known if or when Emily Doe was in blackout, as she would have appeared functional. Doe’s state of blackout during her encounter with Turner can make the case that Turner believed Doe was coherent and provided consent.

Blacking Out the Evidence of Alcohol-induced Blackout: The prosecution argued that the defense expert witness testimony on alcohol-induced blackout should be withheld from the jurors because “it has not been established that alcoholic blackouts are generally accepted in the scientific community.” Contrary to the prosecution’s belief that alcoholic blackout is not accepted by the scientific community, formal scientific research of alcohol-induced blackout began as early as the 1940s by E.M. Jellinek… In 2011, neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine identified the process of alcohol-induced blackout at the cellular level. It was discovered that a large quantity of alcohol consumption interferes with certain brain receptors… ultimately interfering with synaptic plasticity in the brain’s hippocampus and inhibiting memory formation. During Turner’s trial, Prosecutor Kianerci made multiple statements against blackout expert witness Dr. Kim Fromme in an effort to discredit and prevent Dr. Fromme’s testimony.

Emily Doe herself has acknowledged experiencing alcohol-induced blackouts at previous parties. She testified in court that she had experienced “four to five” episodes of blackout while in college. In the police report Doe told police that, “She has blacked out before from drinking, but only when she has been continually drinking for a long time, and it is usually at the end of the night when it happens.” This is similar to what had occurred at the Stanford fraternity party.

Evidence shows that Emily Doe’s self-described alcohol-induced state of blackout did indeed play a major role in her sexual encounter with Brock Turner. There is a likelihood that Emily Doe could have consented to sexual activity with Brock Turner while she was in a state of en bloc alcohol-induced blackout. Of course, Emily Doe cannot remember.

Alcoholic Blackout–Brock Turner Trial 

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