Rutger's Student Dharun Ravi Sentenced To 30-Day Jail Time

parallel_prankster writes "New York Times reports that a judge in New Jersey has sentenced Dharun Ravi to 30 days in jail Monday for using a webcam to spy on his Rutgers University roommate having sex with a man, in a case that galvanized concern about suicide among gay teenagers but also prompted debate about the use of laws against hate crimes. The case drew wide attention because his roommate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in September 2010, a few days after learning of the spying. A jury convicted Mr. Ravi in March of all 15 counts against him, which included invasion of privacy and bias intimidation. The relatively light sentence — he faced up to 10 years in prison — surprised many who were watching the hearing, as it came after the judge spent several minutes criticizing Mr. Ravi's behavior."

Comments

Re:No wrongful death?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because wrongful death is a civil matter. The roommate's family is well within their rights to try and sue him for wrongful death. They might even win.

But, yeah, for something to be criminal, you have to be grossly negligent and directly cause the death, or be doing something with the direct purpose of causing a death.

Re:I was surprised he was convicted on hate charge

[guises]

I'm also surprised, but apparently the judge saw it in more or less the same light - what he did was not deserving of the kind of harsh sentence that the prosecutors were asking for.

On the other hand, thirty days in jail is not the whole sentence. From the article:

In addition to jail, Judge Berman sentenced Mr. Ravi to three years’ probation, 300 hours of community service, counseling about cyberbullying and alternate lifestyles, and a $10,000 probation fee, to be used to help victims of bias crimes.

I'd make some remark about how I feel about the appropriateness of the sentence, but I don't know squat about anyone involved here. I'll presume that the judge, who was much better informed than I, knew what he was doing.

10 years ago, he would have been a hero

[Animats]

Prior to 2003, he would have been reporting a crime in Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, or Virginia.

Re:I was surprised he was convicted on hate charge

[MightyMartian]

Hate crimes were invented during the civil rights era, both out of recognition that certain kinds of crimes were very much intended as attacks against whole communities and, at least so far as Federal legislation goes, to give Federal authorities some ability to prosecute such crimes where state authorities were frequently much less willing to pursue such criminals.

Re:No wrongful death?

[Aglassis]

Of course lawyers on both sides are unhappy, one side wanting exoneration, the other wanting public human sacrifice.

No. The prosecution offered a plea deal of no jail time and recommending against deportation that was rejected by Dharun Ravi because he refused to accept guilt.

Re:I was surprised he was convicted on hate charge

[GodfatherofSoul]

Hate crimes have a very real distinction. They're intended to intimidate a subset of your community, that's why they're elevated. If that doesn't make sense to you, consider that we have at least 4 standards for the fundamentally same crime of taking a life; accidental death(?), manslaughter, 2nd degree murder, and 1st degree murder.

And, contrary to popular belief, a hate crime doesn't mean killing a minority. It's a very difficult legal bar to reach.

Re:No wrongful death?

[chrb]

Both are just wrong, but the first one is more so because it carries social prejudice along with it.

Indeed, but it's worth remembering that there are plenty of places in the world where the social stigma of being filmed having heterosexual sex would likely lead one of the partners to suicide.

Antiguan Girl Attempts Suicide After Sex Tape Leak

Yang Qi Han Attempts Suicide For Sex Video

Officer videoed having sex on duty attempt suicide

Re:I was surprised he was convicted on hate charge

[euroq]

+1. "Hate crime" is a very media-tinged description of the law. The actual laws are not based on the "emotion" of hate at all - they are called "bias intimidation". They are meant to address the crimes that are meant to intimidate a large group of people through a smaller crime. The classic example is a burning cross in a yard - a crime which is similar to TP-ing (toilet papering) a person's yard in terms of property damage, but has implications and damage to a community well beyond the personal property damage of the victim.