Brock Turner has appealed his sexual assault conviction, with lawyers claiming that he engaged in "outercourse," which is not sexual intercourse, and had no intention of raping his victim, NBC News reported.
Turner, a former swimmer at Stanford University, was accused of assaulting an unconscious woman on the Stanford campus in 2015.
He registered as a sex offender in 2016 in Greene County, Ohio, where he is originally from, after serving three months of a six-month sentence.
On Tuesday Turner's lawyers appeared before a three-judge panel in San Jose, California, seeking a new trial that could overturn his mandatory lifetime requirement to register as a sex offender, USA Today noted.
Their reasoning is that Turner did not intend to rape his victim, as was stipulated in his initial charges.
Turner's conviction came from a Jan. 18, 2015, incident during which he was seen thrusting his hips atop an unconscious, partially clothed woman outside the Kappa Alpha fraternity. Two Stanford graduate students chased down Turner after he tried to run away from the scene.
He was found guilty of assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated or unconscious person, sexual penetration of an intoxicated person, and sexual penetration of an unconscious person.
However, Attorney Eric Multhaup argued that Turner was fully clothed when he was found on top of the woman and that he was engaged in "sexual outercourse" and showed no intention of raping her, NBC News noted.
He added that the jury reached its decision by filling in the blanks and making speculation of what had transpired that night, NBC Bay Area reported.
California's 6th District Court of Appeal has 90 days to issue a ruling.
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