Oakwood Municipal Court Judge Margaret Quinn said she has been harassed and criticized because she wrote a character letter for convicted sexual assailant Brock Turner, but she doesn’t believe she violated judicial ethics.
Quinn wrote a letter to Santa Clara County Court Judge Aaron Persky on Turner’s behalf and argued against a prison sentence for the Oakwood High School graduate. She said that Turner could counsel, speak to and warn other men “about the devastating consequences of a single decision.”
Turner was found guilty by jury in California in a behind-the-dumpster sexual assault of an intoxicated, unconscious woman at Stanford University in January 2015. He was sentenced to six months in jail.
Quinn, a retired federal prosecutor, said she wrote the letter as a friend of a family she knows from Holy Angels Parish — not as a part-time judge.
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Ohio’s Code of Judicial Conduct states “a judge shall not testify as a character witness in a judicial, administrative, or other adjudicatory proceeding, or otherwise vouch for the character of a person in a legal proceeding, except when duly summoned.”
“I did not write the letter as a judge. I never once mentioned that I was a part-time municipal judge,” she said. “I wrote it on my stationery. I wrote it as a citizen, as a mom and as somebody who knew this family and this individual.”
According to the Oakwood court, Quinn’s judgeship is part-time with a $67,000 annual salary.
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