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Brock Turner Is Trying to Get His Sexual Assault Convictions Overturned

2 minute read

Brock Turner, who served three months in jail for sexual assault, is appealing his conviction, and looking for a retrial.

Turner was sentenced to six months in June after he was found guilty of three felony counts of sexual assault, over a January 2015 incident in which he was found assaulting an unconscious 22-year-old woman outside a fraternity house. Turner was released in September after serving only three months in jail.

The former swimmer is now appealing his conviction and asking for a new trial. In a 172-page brief filed on Friday, Turner’s lawyers objected to the prosecutor’s description of the the assault as happening “behind the dumpster”, which mischaracterized Turner’s behavior and “implied moral depravity, callousness and culpability,” CNN reports. The brief also argued that the trial excluded character witnesses who could have testified about Turner’s academic and athletic accomplishments, according to the New York Times.

The case prompted national outcry after Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky reduced Turner’s sentence to six months, which many saw as too lenient. Prosecutors had looked for Turner to face six years in prison, but Persky argued that a longer punishment could have “a severe impact” on the Olympic-hopeful’s career. Persky faced a recall campaign to following the trial, and California passed a tougher sentencing bill requiring prison stints for perpetrators convicted of assault unconscious victims.

As part of his conviction, Turner also registered as a sex offender in his home state of Ohio.

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Write to Eli Meixler at eli.meixler@time.com