Absolutely. Here's the thing though: There was massive outrage over that stupid ass "20 minutes of action" remark, as there should be. If nobody batted an eye and that was it, then you'd be right. But that's not what happened. There WAS outrage over the Turner case. I'm not even denying that there should be outrage. But there was. Therefore 'society at large doesn't care about rape victims and will always defend the rapist' is simply not true.
Side note (as this relates to the turner case specifically) based on all the research I can do, ironically, the more Turner and his parents open their stupid ass mouths the bigger they dig a hole for their own grave.
Of course, Turners biggest mistake was committing the rape in the first place. But he continued to make more. First, by refusing to settle. If he'd have just settled, none of this would have made the national news. Nobody except a few people would even know who Turner is, or anything about him other than his swimming records (as he would now prefer it).
Then he was stupid enough to not only insist on taking it to trial but be as insulting as he can to her, at that. Keep in mind this was a case he had absolutely no chance to win, to begin with. There were multiple eyewitnesses, among other things. The best legal defense team in the history of the world won't help you walk out of that one, why even try?
Then of course, after losing, he and his family continued to make more pathetic comments, such as the '20 minutes of action' that you mentioned. At that point by far the smartest thing you could have done (not that he was smart in any way whatsoever up to this point) would be to just apologize profusely, be very specific and direct this his rape was wrong and not the alcohol in his system, promise not to do it again, etc. Did he do that? No. He never formally apologized or directly admitted what he did. Not even now.
On one extreme you have his father and his stupid ass "20 minutes of action" nonsense, on the other extreme you have people protesting outside his house with literal machine guns attached to their vests and signs saying 'castrate him and kill him'.
The girl herself never wanted him killed. She wanted him in jail, but not to rot away for the rest of his life (that's almost a verbatim quote in her words). Ironically the district attorney recommended six years. Supposing he actually just took the six years like a man, he would have been far better off in the long run. Six years is about average for first-time rape offenses. As horrible as this may sound, the rape itself was not exceptional. Not when we're living in a country where rapes happen all the time. What was exceptional was 1) the stupidly short prison sentence, and 2) his complete lack of remorse. He could have fixed those two things before they even started. Like I said, he and his family have continued to dig a bigger and bigger hole for themselves.
I think the six years is even more appropriate when you consider human biology. Scientists believe the human brain finishes developing somewhere around 25. Turner was 19 when he committed the rape. Of course that in no way exuses or jusities what he did, but if at 19, he took his punishment like a man and spent the next 6 years thinking long and hard about what he did, there would have been more hope for him in the long run.
Side note: I'm not surprised at all that this guy went to Stanford. Stanford, MIT, Duke, Ivy League, Oxford, Cambridge, etc... these are the most absolutely stuck up pricks I've ever met. I would never work with one, and if I owned a business I would trash their applications instantly. These are people that think they're entitled to anything they want (in this extreme case a woman's body, but you get the picture). Ugh. Yeah, no thanks.