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Rutgers Student Ravi Convicted of Bias Intimidation and Spying
In 2010, Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi used his computer's webcam to spy on the activities of his gay roommate, Tyler Clementi, and commented about it publicly on Twitter. Days later, Clementi committed suicide. Ravi was indicted on 15 charges, going to trial last month. Now, reader doston sends word that the trial has ended, and Ravi has been found guilty on all 15 charges, though the jury returned a not guilty verdict on aspects of certain charges.
"After less than three full days of deliberations, the five men and seven women of the jury found Dharun Ravi, 20 years old, guilty of invading the privacy of his 18-year-old roommate, Tyler Clementi, and his dorm-room date. They also found that Ravi was motivated by bias under a New Jersey hate-crime law that had been largely untested so far. ... The jury had been asked to decide Ravi’s motivations when he trained his webcam on Clementi and his date on two separate occasions in September 2010, in a case that set off a national conversation about cyber-bullying and treatment of gay youth. ... Ravi faces up to 10 years in prison on most serious bias intimidation convictions, but is likely to receive a lesser sentence based on sentencing guidelines because he is a first time offender. The India-born Ravi, who has spent most of his life in the U.S. as a permanent resident, faces the possibility of deportation as a result of his criminal conviction. He rejected a plea deal in December that would have kept him out of prison and offered him assistance with immigration authorities."
That's pretty gay... err, I mean retarded... err, I mean lame, err...
It's damn unfortunate for everyone involved. But even worse, Ravi is also going to have his life ruined by a man who decided to end his own. What Ravi did was punch in the nose wrong - not 10 years in prison and deportation. Heck, the stupid stuff we did on our floor in college was just as bad or worse. I'm sure 99% of every man who went to college in the dorms can say the same.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
I'll bet he would have done the same thing if his roomie had been straight and brought back a chick.
I really doubt the gay roomie was singled out for his orientation.
The guy is a dickhead who violated another persons very reasonable expectation of privacy and then spread it around. Note that his defense never denied any of it, just claimed it wasn't so bad after all, haters will hate it seems and because this poor guy can be deported that another person felt so bad about having his private live revealed that he killed himself does not matter. Neither has this guy ever made a serious apology, the only thing he feels sorry for is himself.
Now, please tell me why I am a lousy human being for not feeling sorry for this dickhead and thinking poetic justice would be to put a webcam in his cell as he finds a husband during his stretch.
Society has certain rules, they are not that hard to get. Nobody could possibly think that what he did was not morally wrong, yet he did it. Now he cries that its effects on him are to big. The effects HIS actions had on his roommate don't come into it. Let him make a serious effort of atonement BEFORE the jury found him guilty. I never buy it when a criminal says he was so sorry, AFTER his lawyer wrote the speech for him. Maybe I am just not a bleeding heart anymore. And if you think, this is just what 20 year olds do... then it says a lot about you.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think what Ravi did was wrong, and had tragic consequences, but I have a problem with the term "hate crimes," and giving certain segments of society special protections over other segments of society. There should be other crimes that he could be charged with (invasion of privacy laws, etc.), but to charge someone having a particular belief system is wrong. I don't have a problem with considering intent when it comes to sentencing, but it seems entirely improper to consider it as a crime in and of itself.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Yeah, he definitely was guilty of invasion of privacy and most certainly was an asshole of extraordinary magnitude. But am I the only one kind of creeped out by the idea that something as vague as "bias intimidation" can get you ten years in prison? I mean, what the hell even *is* that?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Because Maor Hassan was charged under New Jersey law rather than under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, right?
And of course 10 years in jails is far far worse than the death penalty the prosecution in the Hassan case is going for.
Is it hard to be as stupid as you clearly are?
"Clementi killed himself the next day, using his cellphone to post one final message on his Facebook page: “Jumping off the gw bridge, sorry.”
That's it. It's official now. Facebook status updates have now become an equal partner of sex drive and survival instinct in our brains and from now on, they are going to be handled autonomously by lower brain functions in every life (or death) situation you will encounter. Unless you have no Facebook account, in which case you can use plain old shouting.
Ezekiel 23:20
I think that the anon above may have wanted to link this story address rather than the response to the story which was linked above (though that was also interesting).
Thanks much at any rate for bringing our attention to the New Yorker; their writing is pretty well rounded, and the 14 page article is a bit longer than the other news treatments I've seen about the situation.
This result is in no way proportional to the crime. And you are a nut for thinking it is, and for implying that you hope he gets raped in prison.
We now live in a world where you can get 10 years on prison for spying on your roommate with a webcam thanks like idiots like you who can't be bothered to take 10 seconds to look at a situation rationally.
They just don't want this bullying to continue and are making an extreme example of him. It's national news so the punishment has to be harsh. However, even though what he did was horrible, a punishment shouldn't be completely decided on what the victim does after the fact. If I call someone a moron, and then they go shoot up a school, am I liable for that because of my "hate crime" and do I get punished according to what the victim does? I think this case will set a new precedent on what you can be punished for.
Talk is cheap, put your money where your mouth is.
Did he? There is no evidence of this at all. The suicide note was apparently deemed to be not relevant to the case and was never made public. It isn't justice to assume that the suicide was caused by the webcam and then judge Ravi based on it. It was reported that Tyler's coming out caused some extreme conflict with some of his close family members. Can we say definitively which thing caused the suicide?
The word you are looking for is cimethink. The problem with trying to point out what you are trying to point out is that the people you are arguing with are proficient at doublethink, so they can agree with everything you say in one situation, and disagree with it in another.
What a lot of people don't get is that many people have read 1984 and taken it to be a model for how the world should work.
Firstly, he can be sentenced up to ten years. Sentencing hasn't occurred yet. In fact, the article notes the time spent will likely be less because of the nature of his background and lack of criminal history.
Also, he was offered a plea deal that included no prison time. By, rejecting this deal, he decided to take his case to the jury and accepted the chance of a harsher sentence if found guilty on the charges.
As for the motivated by bias factor that made him guilty of a hate crime, certainly, these laws are controversial and this case may lead to their re-examination.
But, it is the law of the state he was in, he was found guilty of violating it. If the jury thought he violated the law, then good for them for putting aside their personal objections to it and doing what is required of them.
If you don't like these kinds of laws, you lobby to change it. Via the courts or legislation. Maybe this case will be a basis for challenging the law in this state, for example.
All in all, this seems very simple. Don't spy on people. Don't violate their privacy. There are consequences for such actions, and those may be legal in nature.
Consider what happened before this all occurred. A room mate has managed to make another room mate very uncomfortable with his conduct. Ravi may or may not have had to personally witness the act or acts the other room mate conducted with his boyfriend but the mere knowledge of the acts and quite probably other evidence of the acts (such as smells, refuse, stains, disarray) remained in the room. While I'm "okay" with the concept of other people, even my sons being gay, I'm not really okay with it in my presence or within my space... shared or not.
What I wouldn't do is take pictures or video of the acts... that's probably more than I care to see. This would preclude any use of such recorded material for the purpose of "returning the discomfort" to the originator. But I'm guessing that Ravi felt that he was doing precisely that -- returning the discomfort by using his own acts against him.
Increasingly, we are seeing more and more people taking the blame for the reaction of others. This is a dangerous and slippery slope. I have recently made the argument that the guy who plea bargained with Canadian prosecution on a false charge of child pornography in the form of manga did so as a direct result of almost two years of constant fear and intimidation by the Canadian prosecution. Can he then use this as an argument that the plea is invalid because he was under duress? By the standards of "Party B killed himself after being bullied by Party A, so Party A should be punished with jail time" then it stands to reason that there is room for misconduct on the part the prosecution which leads to bad decision making by the defendant. This idea, of course, ties the hands of the prosecution to the point that they couldn't do their job at all for fear of losing every single case based on such a notion. After all, there are plenty of things the other party could have done other than kill himself but the argument is that emotional distress lead to him making a bad choice.
If I have a choice, I don't want him in my country.
You know, this isn't just your country. If I had a choice, I would reject plenty of folks from my country. Your judgement about deportation being a punishment should be weighed on every crime.
This kid did something stupid and he might get deported to a country he didn't grow up in, and might not know at all. Other kids do stupid stuff like this all the time (even resulting in injury or death), and if they get punished at all, don't get sent to an effectively unknown country.. maybe they spend some time doing rehabilitation or restitution, or perhaps some incarceration (very unlikely 10 years).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Why is it that every Asian/Indian that I see put in front of a jury gets the book thrown at them?
There was a Vietnamese guy who rear-ended another car and someone died and he was given over 20 years in prison. He was sober, his only fault was that he reacted a fraction of a second late on a nasty traffic situation.
Uh, actually the dumbass was offered a very light plea bargain and would have only had community service, but the genius decided to plead 'not guilty', which forced a jury trial that he lost. Where's the minority bias there? He could just be cleaning up after old people for a year instead of possible jail time and deportation. Here's my question to you...why do people come to this country from other countries and break the law, then whine when they "get the book thrown at them"?
I can see why it is on the news. But a Tech Site like Slashdot?
Even nerds have to worry about living in police state where you can be thrown in jail for ten years for
1. Thought crimes
2. Other people's actions (when they decide on their own to commit suicide)
3. Committing an offense that would be normally be consider not too serious but becomes serious when committed against special protected classes (I believe there are precedents for this in castes laws in India and in Celtic laws where punishments were based on the social status of the victim and the criminal).
Given that nerds often have thoughts outside the norm, often have trouble anticipating the behavior of more normal people, and often find ourselves at the bottom of social status, such a system is very troubling for us.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
What Ravi did was a mean prank. Sharing it as he did was even worse. But worse and sicker than anything he did is the kind of revenge that the US legal system is prepared to inflict However if the sentence is reasonable, given the circumstances, then the result will be justice done fair and square. We are a bit over hyped by focusing on the maximum possible sentence, before sentence is given. Patience everyone!
On the contrary, one article was already more than enough of it.
"...filming your parents together..."
I love how at this point in the conversion you have already started playing the odds in who might actually be more realistic to be caught having sex...
Who advised this kid to go to a jury trial? This was extraordinarily bad legal advice. He could avoided jail time, deportation, everything. Now, guilty on all charges. Wow. What a bad decision to go to trial. But - more money for the defense attorney.
The guy should count his lucky stars. Not to be harsh, but if the gay guy in question was so distraught about the whole situation that he killed himself, it likely isn't such a far jump to move the victim from oneself to that of the jerk at the root of it all. He should feel very lucky that that guy didn't have murder in him, as it might been the gay roommate on trial, and the other jerk just dead.
Hell, if some asshole made me feel so horrible that I felt that killing myself was the only option, I'd make damn well sure that person was coming with me.
So I guess the moral of the story I am trying to get at, is be nice to one another and be respectful, as their may be repercussions for your actions. The "be very careful" bit, is that those repercussions will be dependent on the individual which may very wildly from person to person.
Sort of makes me think of the movie "Billy Madison" where he calls to apologize after many years to a kid he picked on and bullied. Who played by Steve Buscemi crosses his name off his "People to Kill" list.
Can't we all just learn from Billy Madison?
Uh oh. Caps lock time.
You shouldn't have posted this anonymously. I did not consider this until now. It's a viewpoint that should be more widely shared.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Second, hate crimes are added on to other charges because hate crimes are actually a seperate crime. If you were driving drunk with a black friend in the car and crashed it's different than if you went and lynched someone. In the second case, you not only wanted to hurt the person directly involved but you wanted to send a message of intimidation to people like them.
DING DING! We have a winner!
This is the entire point of having "hate crime" legislation. It has nothing to do with victim of the crime, it has to do with the message he's to sending to other gays (who are, we can all agree, a historically shat-on group)
With the first link, the chain is forged.
The upper limit of the range of punishments for a given category criminal offense is intended to fit every offense in the category. It's intended to fit the worst possible instance of the category that is not in a more severe category.
Well, that's true for a number of reasons, the most significant one of which is that Ravi is unlikely to be sentenced to 10 years in prison (much less put in prison for 10 years, since the length of the sentence and the actual time that will be served often aren't the same thing.)
10 years is the longest possible sentence for the offense he was convicted of. Under the applicable sentencing guidelines (as stated in TFA and even TFS) Ravi is not likely to get anything close to the maximum sentence.
Please note that the State uses a plea bargain as a way to avoid the effort of actually going to trial. Not saying this guy wasn't guilty, but the fact is that only a tiny fraction of criminal cases actually wind up in front of a jury. Why? Because the State says "take this deal or we throw the book - and the chair and the desk and the whole goddamn building - at you". It's not even remotely fair; it is a blatant attempt to intimidate people out of their right to a trial by jury. Of course, the juries are generally not aware of this, and are almost certainly unaware of the deal initially offered.
"Bias intimidation" is even more idiotic that "hate crime". What kind of idiots are we electing as legislators? Oh, right...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
This kid did something stupid and he might get deported to a country he didn't grow up in, and might not know at all. Other kids do stupid stuff like this all the time (even resulting in injury or death), and if they get punished at all, don't get sent to an effectively unknown country.
Ravi is a citizen of India. He is not a citizen of the United States. This means he does not have the same rights that citizens have, and that he is subject to deportation under various circumstances. Now, there is certainly an argument that immigrants should treated more like legal citizens, and not be subject to deportation, but you are writing as if he is an American citizen, which he isn't.
If anyone here gave two shits about what you have to say, we'd listen to your daily 3-hour diatribe, Rush.
Now (tosses some Oxycontin out the window) go fetch!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
This may the the point of hate crime legislation, but it is wrong. There is no right to "not be offended". If I pick on your group - be it race, sexual orientation, hair color, or whatever - this may be an indication of my idiocy, and hopefully I will be ridiculed for it. However, it should not be criminal. Freedom of speech must include the right to be a jerk, else it isn't really freedom of speech.
Just like Rush Limbaugh, the marketplace will sort it out. He talked trash about someone - this was not criminal, but his sponsors are jumping ship. That's the way it ought to work.
"Hate crime" legislation is an abomination, and should be struck down as an offence against free speech.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
You'll notice the GP didn't say anything about a right not to be offended. He was talking about intimidation.
Hate crimes are not simply crimes where someone has said "I think gays are bad". Nobody has outlawed that. They're crimes where someone's said "I'm going to beat you up, or kill you, because you're gay."
This is about violence being used to, or with the effect of, intimidate a group of real people who have done nothing wrong. Sometimes motives matter. This is one of those cases. If it doesn't matter, if violence and killing is no worse if the intent is to intimidate a group of people, then convict Bin Laden for manslaughter and have him do community service.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The question of whether Hassan was a terrorist is more interesting than you probably give credit, and really comes down to what the definition of terrorism is. Consider "Hasan passed up several opportunities to shoot civilians, and instead focused on soldiers in uniform." If he intended to terrorise the population, why didn't he shoot the civilians? Did he actually see some wider political meaning to his attacks, that American soldiers would not feel safe anywhere? And if he considered himself part of an non-state army, then are soldiers a legitimate military target? Note that question is an important one - it always comes up in response in similar situations e.g. to give two contrasting examples: French resistance attacks on German soldiers, and IRA attacks on British soldiers. If during the American Revolution, a soldier serving in the British Army had decided that the actions of the British were wrong, and to ally himself with the Americans, and he then killed some fellow British soldiers, would he have been a terrorist?
There was a similar debate over the Norway attacks, when some people argued that the attacks weren't "terrorism", even though hours earlier they had called the attacks terrorism, but literally changed terminology when it was discovered that the attacker was a Christian and not a Muslim. This is a man who espoused a very specific political platform, planned his attacks over several years, and wrote a huge thesis demanding wider political change, and who thought that his attacks would effect that change, and yet there were still people who refused to label him as a "terrorist".
Bullshit.
You didn't mention the media. You said the courts were too liberal.
Apparently you can't read your own posts.
I dislike the concept of hate crimes laws.
But I dislike a lot of things, and one thing that hanging around with gay and trans people has taught me is: We appear to need these laws, in that in their absence, people get away with a lot of crap.
Here's the thing. Someone said this was "punch in the nose" wrong behavior. Well, think of what happens if people decide that punching people like you in the nose is okay, or possibly morally obligatory. So it's not that some guy punches you in the nose once; it's that everywhere you go, about 10% of the time when you walk into a public place, someone punches you in the nose.
The cumulative effect is wildly different from what you'd expect if you just looked at the severity of a single offense and multiplied by the number of times it happens. It turns out that there is a big difference between "sometimes people are a jerk to you, it happens, you deal", and "people are systematically and consistently a jerk to you and anyone like you no matter what you personally have or haven't done."
I really don't see a problem with this outcome. You bully a lot of people, especially people that you know to already be subject to excessive harassment, and sometimes things go very wrong. Solution: Don't bully people, and especially don't bully people you know to be members of groups that are systematically bullied by lots of other people. If you do, you take the risk that the bullying will go horribly wrong and people will blame you for it. Possibly because, if you hadn't done it, that wouldn't have happened.
Basically, what the comments here do is illustrate, to me, why hate crime laws are a necessary thing; because the world is full of people who, never having been the subject of systematic harassment, are quick to dismiss it as no big deal and think it's funny when it happens to people they look down on. So we do need a way to clarify that, yes, this really is a big deal, and really is a problem. Congratulations! The reason we need hate crime laws is that a significant number people, some of them slashdot commenters, have not yet reached the level of empathic response to other peoples' circumstances that we would typically expect from an autistic teenager.
(... And I know, because I was an autistic teenager, and I was a little better than what I'm seeing here. Not much better, though.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Mod this Insightful
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
If you look at the actual breakdown of the charges Ravi was convicted of, you'll notice that he was acquitted of all the bias intimidation sub-charges that he knowingly intimidated Clementi. The one that he was convicted of, which caused the bias intimidation guilty verdict was that "under circumstances that caused Tyler Clementi to be intimidated, and considering the manner in which the offense was committed, Clementi reasonably believed that he was selected to be the target of the offense because of sexual orientation".
So basically he was convicted not because Ravi had any bias when committing the act, but but because Clementi believed that the act was committed out of bias.
That's a very scary verdict because it basically states that it doesn't matter whether or not you have any real bias when committing a crime. You can still be convicted of bias intimidation if the victim believes you are biased. In other words, it's not what you believe, it's what someone else things you believe.
With that precedent, you can use bias intimidation charges to charge and convict preachers for preaching against homosexuality in churches or comics for making "inappropriate" jokes in comedy houses.
Rear ending any vehicle ever means that you were following too close. That's entirely under your control, and you deserve the consequences for whatever happens. Back the fuck off.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You obviously haven't read the new yorker article here.
It was extremely more likely that the scorn he received from his mother likely pushed him over the edge. He even took her on "tours of bridges around new york". If thats not a cry for help...
The whole story was dramatized by various people with various goals. Alot of it was played out online, and tyler had used the same handle on multiple websites so he was easy to track down.
Personally, i think the whole case could have been solved if they just got in a fight and then had a beer. Of course people would rather write about it online now then even TALK to each other. and they lived in the same fucking room!!
Seriously, read the article. I would say as someone who also has a special interest to spin on this :), that the cause of all the problems can be traced to online vanity and lack of anonymity. Ravi even complained that the guy had a yahoo email address, i mean this is bullshit things ALL kids complain about. However, now all the kids do it online with their real names. This is the problem here, stupid kids stupidity amplified x100 because of the internets.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
"Hate crime" legislation is an abomination, and should be struck down as an offence against free speech.
Tell that to the people who are victims of hate crime... like the kid who got decapitated, dismembered, and then set on fire in Detroit last November for the crime of being transgendered....
1. It's not a thought crime. Ravi actually did something, he didn't just think about it. He actually invaded another man's privacy and he actually publicly humiliated that man because of what he saw during said invasion. Further, he attempted to get other individuals to lie to police during the investigation. Not thought crimes.
2. Ravi was not charged with any category of homicide. He was charged with bias intimidation and invasion of privacy as well as witness tampering. The suicide brought attention to the crimes, yes, but he was not charged with homicide.
3. "Gay" is not a "special protected class. Anyone of any sexual orientation is a "special protected class" if they are being targeted for harm because of their sexual orientation, period.
It's weird that you find someone being punished for invading another person's privacy, attempting to intimidate and harass that person due to what was seen during that invasion, and then to later attempt to thwart investigation into the crimes - unless, are you saying you think it would be perfectly all right for someone to do those things to you and your loved ones? A strange POV for slashdot, but then again, you do say you have thoughts outside the norm so maybe you're special.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Anyone against gay marriage in New Jersey can now be charged under hate crime especially when emotionally unstable gay person can commit suicide due to public biased intimidation from anti-gay marriage bill proponents.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Using that definition of thought crime, most crimes (speaking here of the US system, though the same is true of lots of other systems of law) are "thought crime", as most crimes require a specific mental state as an essential element (the exception would be "strict liability" crimes, but those are pretty rare.)
Im not angry in the slightest.
You just said one ridiculous thing - that a guy who committed a crime on a military base in Texas should be charged under a New Jersey law instead of the death penalty offense he has been charged with - and used that as some evidence of coirts being too liberal. And then claimed you were talking about the media.
Now you claim you were talking about both liberal courts and a liberal media. But I'm still confused as to why you think New Jersey state law should apply to a guy in Texas under Federal jurisdiction. And expanation of how seeking the death penalty is more liberal than seeking a 10 year jail term would be good too.
Yeah, because saying that he yelled "dirka dirka" makes you totally credible as a person we should listen to about that case. And I agree, extremely likely that someone would join the army and serve for 8 years in order to eventually perpetrate a terrorist act. Sounds legit to me.
Show me the liberal media, jackson. Seriously. Where is it? MSBNC, maybe? NPR? Show me the liberally-biased courts. Lord knows the Supreme is not one of them.
No need to make shit up just to try to twist things to win some childish argument game. Words mean what the consensus put in a dictionary means.
Also WTF do you think they did all that time in court? Played Tetris or talked about the case in the sort of detail you only get by talking about it for days?
I never suggested someone in Texas should have New Jersey law applied to him. What I commented on was what I thought was interesting: that someone who yells "allah is great" and shoots military members on a base doesn't get called a terrorist (it's "workplace violence") but a college kid who videotapes his roommate having sex with another man is labelled "bias intimidation". I simply wanted to point out the irony or hypocrisy of that...after posting, I was surrounded by villagers with torches and pitchforks for voicing an opinion. Regarding the media, when GW was President every death in the GWOT and every gas hike, and every bit of his past was drug up and put on display every night. President Obama is immune from any sort of vetting or investigation. I don't want a witch hunt to ensue, I think he's doing ok, but the hypocrisy is something that's noticed. I don't even get started with the courts because that could get ugly, but if you follow court decisions you'll soon realize courts now more than ever are creating law rather than interpreting law. Freedom OF religion does not imply freedom FROM religion. I'm done arguing here, I wish people would point out the good and bad of all politicians and the news would report the news with as litle bias as possible.
...there is a 50% chance (actually it's a bit less than that but I leave that as an exercise for the readers with 3 digit IQs to work out) that you have 2 digit IQ but are incapable of realising that's the case (stupid people are generally not smart enough to realise they are stupid, so I am breaking it to you gently) and therefore have to resort to posting profanity because you're incapable in constructing a coherent counter argument.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I've posted this comment in other places, and I think it's fitting to repeat...
There are two questions anyone trying to form an opinion on this case should ask themselves:
1. Can you come up with two or more positive outcomes that would have come from Ravi's actions against Tyler?
My answer: Absolutely not. What Ravi did was, plain and simple, cruel and yes, unusual. I don't care if he's an 18-year-old "kid". I knew by the age of 5 that you treated people with respect. When Tyler found out, there would have been no "haha"s or him buying rounds for the group, saying, "Man, you guys got me good! Barkeep! Another round for my good pals!" If it hadn't been suicide, it'd be clinical depression, leaving his school of choice, and/or other negative outcomes. Mind, I don't hold Ravi accountable for Tyler's suicide, but the conditions that LED him there.I'm sure Tyler showed serious distress and depression between the time he found out and his sad choice; couldn't Ravi have shown remorse, stepped in and apologized? Since he didn't, and by all reports I've read, *hasn't*, then I can't be satisfied that he's a "poor boy who made a mistake".
2. Could he have told Tyler he didn't want that going on in their dorm, avoiding his 'discomfort' that supposedly led him to ogling a scene of two guys getting it on?
My answer: Yes. If he "couldn't handle two guys kissing", then he shouldn't have invited himself to watch via webcam. One big DUH there. I believe that anyone living in a dorm and having a roommate has the right to say what they'd like/not like have happen in their living space. As much as I usually side/support the gay community, I wouldn't have seen Ravi telling Tyler, "Look, with all due respect, I ain't comfortable, especially since I don't know this guy. Can you go back to his place or something?" If Tyler had called "PREJUDICE!", I would most likely side with Ravi. They could have talked it over, making rules as to what they want and DON'T want going on, as they have to compromise.
So yea--those two factors/questions lead me to hoping Ravi gets what he gets. Whether or not some view 10 years and/or deportation as extreme (I kinda do myself), the laws he broke were laws already in existence. One can't plead ignorance to those laws and be told, "Aw, well, just don't do it again, 'k?"
Yes, I will almost always take the side of the homosexual community. I myself am gender-queer (a woman who finds more satisfaction and worth in imagining two men together, rather than myself engaged in straight relationships) and don't mind saying it. I'm strong in my convictions and self-introspection to the point where my friends and family know who I am and why--my HUSBAND was the one to help me identify myself. I'm confident enough and don't care what people think of me; unfortunately, Tyler was too young and vulnerable. If we're to say Ravi was 'inexperienced' in the homosexual dynamic and 'didn't understand', then how can we then expect Tyler to rationalize his situation when he was so overcome by emotion and pain, due to another's horrendous actions toward him?
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
1. It's not a thought crime. Ravi actually did something, he didn't just think about it. He actually invaded another man's privacy and he actually publicly humiliated that man because of what he saw during said invasion. Further, he attempted to get other individuals to lie to police during the investigation. Not thought crimes.
2. Ravi was not charged with any category of homicide. He was charged with bias intimidation and invasion of privacy as well as witness tampering. The suicide brought attention to the crimes, yes, but he was not charged with homicide.
3. "Gay" is not a "special protected class. Anyone of any sexual orientation is a "special protected class" if they are being targeted for harm because of their sexual orientation, period.
It's weird that you find someone being punished for invading another person's privacy, attempting to intimidate and harass that person due to what was seen during that invasion, and then to later attempt to thwart investigation into the crimes - unless, are you saying you think it would be perfectly all right for someone to do those things to you and your loved ones? A strange POV for slashdot, but then again, you do say you have thoughts outside the norm so maybe you're special.
I don't object to the guy being punished, I object to the cruel and unusual punishment of 10 years in prison for some minor offenses. You dispute each of the points for which I say Ravi is being punished, but if it weren't for his thoughts, the decision of Clementi to murder himself, and the fact the Clementi was gay, would Ravi be facing 10 years? He would be facing maybe a year. So he's facing 9 of those years for thought crime, another person's decision, and for the social status of the victim.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Alright, I had to post so I wouldn't waste / abuse my mod points because some of the commentry that I am reading just really pisses me off. I understand that I am the minority here (a gay geek), but those of you who do not understand what it is like to be afraid of society finding out your "deviance from the norm" seriously need to have some empathy and try and see how hard it really is. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202
While yes, Clementi killed himself. I don't agree with the bias intimidation or hate crime legislation at all, but he deserved to be punished - what he did was a crime. And, according to most major news sources I've read, the Jury felt he was lying when he said he "turned it off" before the second broadcast. In fact, almost everything I've read suggest Tyler himself turned it off after reading Ravi's twitter..
He isn't getting 10 years for certain, he can get UP TO 10 years. And he had a fine opportunity to plea bargain and receive basically probation and help dealing with immigration so he wouldn't be deported. Instead, he chose to go to court and risk conviction and a harsher sentence.
And again you say he was tried and convicted for his thoughts. Again, you are wrong. He could have thought anything at all and, had his actions not shown what he was thinking, he wouldn't have had any legal problems at all. There are many, many, many people in the US who absolutely hate gay people and who would love to see gay people suffer, but because they do not act on those thoughts there is no crime.
Ravi, however, chose to have a cam on the guy (invasion of privacy), then made public statements about it, directly referencing the sexual orientation of the guy (providing some evidence for the hate crime addition), and then threatened to do it again with even more exposure, before deciding to call that part off. He then, when the shit hit the fan and the guy committed suicide, tried to tamper with the witnesses in the investigation (really bad idea!) and get them to lie.
Had Ravi simply hated gay people but not invaded the guy's privacy, threatened to do it again in a public forum (and made it clear he was threatening to do it because the guy was gay), and then tampered with the witnesses in the case, he would not have ANY of these problems. His thoughts were not the issue - it's that he had the thoughts, ACTED ON THEM IN NUMEROUS WAYS, and then made it clear that his thoughts on gay people were why he took those actions.
You ask if any of this wouldn't have happened if Ravi hadn't had his thoughts, if Clementi hadn't committed suicide, or if Clementi wasn't gay and all I can say is:
If Ravi hadn't had his thoughts he wouldn't have invaded another man's privacy, done bias intimidation via threatening to broadcast the next encounter, and then engaged in witness tampering after the investigation started to look at what had happened prior to the suicide. So, again, if Ravi had not committed multiple felonies (that sprung from his thoughts), probably he would not be facing possibly years in prison.
Clementi might have killed himself anyway - but if that had happened, and then investigators looking into the circumstances had discovered nothing about Ravi, because Ravi hadn't done the things he did, then again, no, he wouldn't be facing prison because he wouldn't have committed multiple felonies.
However, let me put something else out there:
Let's say Ravi tweeted about how he doesn't like his gay roommate and then the guy killed himself. Let's say Ravi didn't invade the man's privacy and then threaten a further invasion because of the man's sexual orientation. Let's say that because he didn't do anything of the sort he also didn't feel compelled to tamper with witnesses or otherwise hinder the investigation. Would he still be facing prison? Answer: Hell no. Because he wouldn't have committed any of the felonies that in reality he did.
You keep on saying "thought crime!" but I don't think you understand what a thought crime is. So let me explain it: It is literally thinking thoughts that, in and of themselves, with no need for action taken, are sufficient reason in a system to imprison someone.
Ravi committed multiple felonies that required ACTIONS. The sentences for those felonies were enhanced because of his motivation (thoughts) for committing them, but he was NOT punished solely for his thoughts.
If Ravi had taken responsibility for what he DID (regardless of what he THOUGHT), he would have been given probation. If Ravi had only THOUGHT what he thought but hadn't DONE what he DID, he wouldn't have even had probation because it wouldn't be a crime. But instead he allowed his THOUGHTS to guide his ACTIONS, then made it very, very clear (at least to 12 jurors) that he would not have DONE the things he DID without THINKING the THOUGHTS he had, and they convicted him.
Ravi nee
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
There is no irony or hypocrisy. New Jersey state law has a crime that the Uniform Code of Military Justice does not. Now it may be a stupid law, but it's hardly interesting that someone not under its jurisdiction isn't charged under it and someone who is is.
How you get from that to there's a grand media/justice system conspiracy to be biased and liberal I'm not sure, but whatever floats your boat.
If the victim had been heterosexual he woud not have been a victim, Ravi wouldn't have gone for him.
...but when I am, I prefer Gay Sex!
I am not in the least bit convinced of this. If Ravi played the Peeping Tom when his gay roommate kicked him out so he could steam up the place, I don't see any reason to believe that Ravi would not do the same if his roommate was straight. Unless, of course, Ravi was also gay. Which he's not. He's just a dick who reacted poorly to his roommate having sexcapades in his dorm room. Which makes his roommate a bit of a dick too.
I see the facts that he is a straight dick or that his roommate was a bent dick as both being somewhat orthogonal to the actual problem, which is that two people were dicks to each other, and one of them jumped off a bridge.
I'm the real Vorokrytin P. Winterbuttocks.
I know. I'm getting angrier and angrier to the point that the other day, I had to shut every window regarding Ravi and the case off--what made me sad was that I had to close /., a place where I feel safe to express myself as someone who puts thought into what they say with like-minded people, most of whom are driven by reason, skepticism and fun geekery. It saddens me whenever I hear someone who's an atheist, scientist, etc. spout off like people have here because I expect better from them. I guess this is where, sadly, I lose some love and faith in the community I hold dear.
Btw, gay geeks are the hottest creatures on the planet. I think that in order to save my sanity, I'm clicking this away to continue working on my astronomy-geek!slash-fanfiction. I'm just getting to the renting-a-motel-room!scene, so wtf am I doing here being angry and shit? Lol...
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin