The premise of the Stanford graduate’s ruling, where he gave a Stanford student light sentence, was that the accused should be allowed a few more bad decisions before being reigned in:

…recalling a judge primarily based on one decision — that, for me, is a step too far.

Ooops, I’m sorry, that is actually the judge explaining why he should be allowed another chance after his own poor judgment. I suppose he also might have considered claiming that he was intoxicated on the bench as that seems also to be some sort of get-out-sentencing card to him:

Prosecutors had asked for a six-year prison sentence. But Persky sided with a recommendation from the county probation department, which said “when compared to other crimes of similar nature” the Turner case “may be considered less serious due to (his) level of intoxication.”

Is it just me or does this sound like someone is arguing that drinks are the cause of violent crimes, as if straight out of a prohibition pamphlet?

The judge’s reasoning seems seriously lacking, self-servingly biased if not just insensitive, and none of this has yet to rehabilitate Stanford’s image. The word in Silicon Valley continues to be that the school seems ethically challenged by design:

There are conflicts of interest here; and questions of power dynamics. […] The school now looks like a giant tech incubator with a football team.

So the real headline is a Stanford man is dumped by voters, which may be a symptom of spreading consciousness about Silicon Valley political conservatism that ties back to the sadly racist and corrupt legacy of the school’s founder. Read carefully the 1862 Inaugural Address of Stanford after he bribed his way into office:

To my mind it is clear, that the settlement among us of an inferior race is to be discouraged, by every legitimate means. Asia, with her numberless millions, sends to our shores the dregs of her population. Large numbers of this class are already here; and, unless we do something early to check their immigration, the question, which of the two tides of immigration, meeting upon the shores of the Pacific, shall be turned back, will be forced upon our consideration, when far more difficult than now of disposal. There can be no doubt but that the presence of numbers among us of a degraded and distinct people must exercise a deleterious influence upon the superior race, and, to a certain extent, repel desirable immigration. It will afford me great pleasure to concur with the Legislature in any constitutional action, having for its object the repression of the immigration of the Asiatic races.