WOODLAND — After four years of legal proceedings including two mistrials, a Yolo Superior Court judge sentenced a former UC Davis student to a year in county jail for the sexual assault of a fellow student following an off-campus house party.
“This case is a real tragedy for these young people, both of whom have so much promise,” Judge Paul Richardson said Tuesday before sentencing 26-year-old Lang Her, who upon facing a third trial on rape charges pleaded no contest to a felony count of assault likely to produce great bodily injury.
But actions have consequences, the judge added, and “there is a signal that needs to be sent.”
In addition to the yearlong jail term — three months longer than probation officers recommended — Richardson ordered Her to serve five years of probation, register as a sex offender and undergo sex offender counseling. He’s due to surrender to the jail on Aug. 30.
The two-hour sentencing hearing saw impassioned statements not only from the victim, identified in court documents as “Y.X.,” but also her parents and siblings.
Y.X. spoke last, describing in a six-page statement the trauma she experienced on July 10, 2012, when she awoke from an intoxicated sleep to discover Her, a school friend, having sex with her in his Davis apartment — and the years of blame that followed.
“My world turned upside down the minute Lang Her decided to rape me. It didn’t matter if I was drunk or unconscious — Lang Her raped me,” she said.
“And I don’t know why every imaginable question was asked like, Why were you there in the first place? How much did you have to drink? What were you wearing? Why didn’t you call the cops? Why didn’t you do anything right? Well, I did everything I believed was and is right.”
The woman’s parents also delivered statements in their native Hmong language, prompting defense attorney Christopher Carlos at one point to allege that one statement by the woman’s mother amounted to criminal threats against his client.
“I’m going to allow it. This is the first time in the entire proceeding that some members of the family are being heard,” Richardson said. “While I don’t understand what they’re saying, I certainly understand the emotional impact.”
Richardson presided over both trials, the first of which in May 2015 ended in a mistrial after jurors deadlocked 8-4 in favor of acquittal. A second trial this past spring also ended in a hung jury, that one voting 10-2 for guilt.
“It’s clear that this was not a clear-cut case. There’s two sides to every story,” Carlos said prior to sentencing. He asked Richardson to reject jail in favor of straight probation, noting Her’s lack of prior criminal history.
Imposing jail time “is not going to make anybody whole again. It’s not going to make anybody better,” Carlos said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven, who prosecuted the second trial, also addressed the court, speaking of the challenges of trying cases like Her’s, where the defendant and the victim often are the only witnesses. He also noted the “counterintuitive” actions of some victims who don’t fight off their assailants, or delay reporting their assaults to police.
“Jurors don’t often understand this behavior because it’s so contrary to how they believe a victim should act,” Raven said.
Y.X., who stayed the rest of the night in Her’s apartment and allowed him to drive her to school the following morning, said Tuesday she did so out of fear of a further assault if she confronted him.
Her, meanwhile, initially denied having sex with Y.X., but after forensic testing revealed his DNA in vaginal swabs, he described a consensual encounter in which they were unclothed but did not have sex, saying pre-ejaculate accounted for the genetic material.
“She brought me in and she kissed me,” Her testified at his second trial. Confronted about his change in story, he said he feared authorities “would twist it around and say I had inadvertently admitted to the sexual assault.”
Richardson came to the defense of the two juries that heard Her’s trials, saying while both were unable to reach unanimous verdicts, “I believe that both juries were conscientious in their work.”
He also expressed hope that the defendant and the victim — both of them children of immigrant families who pursued and achieved excellence in their education — will someday rise above the four-year ordeal.
“There’s nothing the court will do today that will be the final verdict of these two young people,” Richardson said. “I believe that deeply.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene