Good evening,
I’m Melissa Kirtley, a long-time resident of Santa Clara County. I would like to submit the following letter to the editor to be published in the Santa Clara Weekly.
If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact me anytime at this email address or the phone number below.
Thank you for your consideration,
Melissa Kirtley
408-203-7738
**********
Since when does someone have to commit a crime to lose their job? Persky and his supporters say he followed the “rule of law,” which sounds like he had no choice but to give Turner a weak sentence. That language is deliberate and intended to confuse. All it really means is Persky didn’t break the law by following the probation departmentÛªs recommendation to give Turner a light sentence. What they didnÛªt say is that passing on that recommendation and giving Turner a harsher sentence fitting to his heinous, violent crimes would also have been legal. So given the choice between two perfectly legal courses of action, Persky chose the option that would release a sex offender back into the community as quickly as possible (as to not have a ÛÏsevere impact on his lifeÛ), the same community that