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A New Jersey jury today found former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi guilty of the most serious charges for spying on his roommate, Tyler Clementi, having a gay sexual encounter in 2010.
Ravi was convicted of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, witness tampering, and hindering arrest, stemming from his role in activating a webcam to peek at Clementi's date with a man on Sept. 19, 2010. Ravi was also accused of encouraging others to spy during a second date, on Sept. 21, 2010, and intimidating Clementi for being gay.
Ravi, who faces 10 years in prison and deportation to India, was was found not guilty of some of the 15 counts of bias intimidation, attempted invasion of privacy, and attempted bias intimidation, but was found guilty of the majority of crimes.
What an idiot!!!! He was offerend a plea deal to do no prison time and he goes to court to defend himself to be gulitiy on all 15 counts?? He should have took the deal.
A very unjust and wrong verdict, proving no one has any freedom to have private thoughts nor opinions about anyone. Freedom is dead in NJ. The thought police have struck.
A very unjust and wrong verdict, proving no one has any freedom to have private thoughts nor opinions about anyone. Freedom is dead in NJ. The thought police have struck.
How does that make sense? It proves that you don't have freedom to turn those thoughts into entertainment via your electronics. That's invasion of privacy. It's OK then if I put a camera on you in your own private space?
Back to the OP--I'm somewhat surprised. I thought he would be acquitted. However, I haven't been following the trial in the news (having once served on a murder trial jury, I know how poor the reporting of the details of a trial are in the newspapers). I base my opinion on the New Yorker article that someone posted on this forum a few weeks ago.
Private thoughts and opinions are one thing. Making a conscious decision to turn a webcam on to spy on your roommate and invite others to watch is not a private thought nor an opinion.
While I do not know if what he did was because his roommate was gay, there are invasion of privacy laws for a reason, and I can not think of a bigger invasion of privacy then watching someone in what they thought was a private and intimate act without their knowledge or consent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by captne76
A very unjust and wrong verdict, proving no one has any freedom to have private thoughts nor opinions about anyone. Freedom is dead in NJ. The thought police have struck.
I read an interesting editorial the other day in Newsweek by Jay Michaelson. Michaelson is a professor, teacher and scholar focusing on religion, sexuality, law and ethics at BU, Yale and NYC College. He is the leading author on "New Jewish Culture" and is also a staunch advocate for GLBT rights.
This is article which lays out a rather convincing argument against Ravi being guilty of bias intimidation:
Ravi wouldn't accept the plea deal because that came with automatic associated guilt that would dog him forever. He was already guilty in the eyes of the world of the worst of his crimes and many still blame him for Clementi's death as if he personally pushed him off the bridge. A trial where he was found not guilty of the most serious charges was the only way he could partially clear his name.
I honestly thought they would not find him guilty of bias intimidation. The case amounted to whether or not Ravi did what he did because he hated gay people. I don't think he did. He was certainly guilty of the other charges and rightfully so, but that one, I have just never been convinced of. They "proved" that he hated gays because he used words that are considered derogatory, but does the use of such words as Michaelson argues in his article truly amount to bias and hate?
To use an obtuse example it would be as if a white man killed a black man. He committed the murder, everyone knows he did it. However, they go a step further and try to prove that he hated black people and that was the motivation for the crime. They produce evidence that the white guy once referred to the man he murdered as "that black guy" and at some point in his past had used the "n" word. Bam, now he committed a hate crime. That is basically what Ravi was found guilty of.
Ask yourself honestly, would Ravi had videotaped it if it were a heterosexual encounter? I think he may have. If it was a heterosexual encounter, even one leading to a suicide, would Ravi be guilty for anything more then the minor offenses he was charged with? I don't think so.
Ravi wasn't the one on trial, this was about making a statement in a case that drew national attention. That isn't the way justice should be conducted and IMO, the use of "hate crime" charges in this case truly weakens what they were enacted for.
Invasion of privacy? Yes, guilty 100%. Bias intimidation, i.e., hate crime? No, I'm very uncomfortable with that. You are determining someone's fate in a court of law based on the reaction of the person who was spied on. What if he didn't kill himself? What if he just laughed and said "whatever"? Would Ravi be tried and found guilty of the same crime? No. It's how Clementi reacted that determined the verdict. Very slippery slope here and a very dangerous precedent.
The truth is, we have no idea why this kid jumped off the bridge. Maybe it was for something entirely unrelated to this! Maybe his boyfriend broke up with him. But even if it was completely because of being spied on, you still can't put the blame on someone else for that.
If I give someone a dirty look at Wawa and they get in their car and intentionally drive into a tree, is that bias intimidation?
Jumping off the GW bridge is, I'm assuming, a very difficult thing to do. You have to have deep rooted issues to do something like this. One bad experience won't prompt you to do something so extreme.
Invasion of privacy? Yes, guilty 100%. Bias intimidation, i.e., hate crime? No, I'm very uncomfortable with that. You are determining someone's fate in a court of law based on the reaction of the person who was spied on. What if he didn't kill himself? What if he just laughed and said "whatever"? Would Ravi be tried and found guilty of the same crime? No. It's how Clementi reacted that determined the verdict. Very slippery slope here and a very dangerous precedent.
The truth is, we have no idea why this kid jumped off the bridge. Maybe it was for something entirely unrelated to this! Maybe his boyfriend broke up with him. But even if it was completely because of being spied on, you still can't put the blame on someone else for that.
If I give someone a dirty look at Wawa and they get in their car and intentionally drive into a tree, is that bias intimidation?
Jumping off the GW bridge is, I'm assuming, a very difficult thing to do. You have to have deep rooted issues to do something like this. One bad experience won't prompt you to do something so extreme.
I agree with most of you. Definitely invasion of privacy. But I am not convinced he wouldn't have done this if his roommate was with a female. Would that be a hate crime?
Honestly though I don't have a lot of sympathy for him. The whole thing could have easily been avoided in the first place by not setting up and spying in the first place.
Invasion of privacy? Yes, guilty 100%. Bias intimidation, i.e., hate crime? No, I'm very uncomfortable with that. You are determining someone's fate in a court of law based on the reaction of the person who was spied on. What if he didn't kill himself? What if he just laughed and said "whatever"? Would Ravi be tried and found guilty of the same crime? No. It's how Clementi reacted that determined the verdict. Very slippery slope here and a very dangerous precedent.
The truth is, we have no idea why this kid jumped off the bridge. Maybe it was for something entirely unrelated to this! Maybe his boyfriend broke up with him. But even if it was completely because of being spied on, you still can't put the blame on someone else for that.
If I give someone a dirty look at Wawa and they get in their car and intentionally drive into a tree, is that bias intimidation?
Jumping off the GW bridge is, I'm assuming, a very difficult thing to do. You have to have deep rooted issues to do something like this. One bad experience won't prompt you to do something so extreme.
I wouldn't be so sure about that statement. I recall a man from CT a couple years ago killing his neighbor based on a lie from his daughter about having been molested.
One bad decision can be the precursor to many other outcomes. Those outcomes can feel pretty extreme if one is in the 'closet' and now has to think about the repercussion of being caught on tape with another man engaging in sexual conduct. I remember my freshman floor/experience and it can be a pretty toxic environment if one doesn't have the right maturity. I'm not gay but I can understand how being exposed in such a matter, for someone still very young and amongst his peers and family can feel like the world is coming down on you.
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