John Bacon

USA TODAY

A California judge who sparked outrage across the nation by sentencing a former Stanford University swim team member convicted of sexual assault to just six months in county jail slid quietly into a new judicial term Tuesday.

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky would have faced voters Tuesday, but his election was canceled because he drew no challengers. Stanford law professor Michele Dauber says Persky won't complete this six-year term.

"His victory will be short-lived," Dauber told USA TODAY. "I am 100% confident we will recall him. His decision hit every woman in the state of California in the gut."

More than 300,000 people have signed a Change.org online petition demanding Persky's ouster. Dauber has started a formal recall website, which drew $8,000 in donations in eight hours, aimed at making that happen. She said a hand-written petition drive will begin soon aimed at collecting the estimated 70,000 signatures needed to put Persky's recall on the ballot.

"His ruling was dangerous and wrongheaded," Dauber said. "We need to replace him with someone who understands violence against women."

Brock Turner, 20, was found guilty in March of three counts of sexual assault for the attack on an unconscious woman in January 2015. He was arrested after two graduate students on bicycles rode up as the assault was taking place near a trash bin, shouted and then tackled Turner when he fled.

Turner, who claimed the victim had consented to sex, could have faced more than a decade in prison on the charges — assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated/unconscious person, penetration of an intoxicated person and penetration of an unconscious person. At the sentencing hearing last week, the 23-year-old victim read an emotional letter detailing what she remembered of the horror, including taking a shower at the hospital after the attack.

"I stood there examining my body beneath the stream of water and decided, I don't want my body anymore. I was terrified of it, I didn't know what had been in it, if it had been contaminated, who had touched it," she said. "I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital with everything else."

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Turner's father, Dan Turner, countered that his son's life "will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20-plus years of life."

Prosecutors sought six years for Turner, while the defense sought a four-month sentence. Probation officials suggested six months. Persky — citing Turner's age, the fact that he was drunk and thus bore "less moral culpability," and the lack of "significant" prior legal problems — issued a six-month sentence, which includes three years of probation.

State prison, Persky said, could have a "severe" impact on Turner's life.

Attempts by USA TODAY to contact the judge were not successful. District Attorney Jeff Rosen said he does not support efforts to remove Persky from his post but blasted the ruling.

“The predatory offender has failed to take responsibility, failed to show remorse and failed to tell the truth," Rosen said. "The sentence does not factor in the true seriousness of this sexual assault, or the victim’s ongoing trauma. Campus rape is no different than off-campus rape. Rape is rape.”

Stanford distanced itself from the controversy, saying in a statement that the school "did everything within its power to assure that justice was served in this case."

The ruling drew outrage from many in the Stanford community and across the nation. The Change.org petition calls Persky's ruling a "travesty of justice" and seeks his removal from office.

"Judge Persky failed to see that the fact that Brock Turner is a white male star athlete at a prestigious university does not entitle him to leniency," the petition reads. "He also failed to send the message that sexual assault is against the law regardless of social class, race, gender or other factors."

Dauber tweeted that "sitting in that courtroom was like a trip to the Middle Ages. Do we still burn witches?" She dismissed the probation department's recommendation.

"The judge has to make the call," she told USA TODAY. "He doesn't get to pass the buck."