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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."
Secretly filming your roommate having gay sex is a little worse than just saying something random and mean on slashdot.
I don't know about wrongful death, but I think it's pretty fucking awful... assuming he intended to do some kind of emotional harm with the video.
If he was just going to wank to it later, then well, 30 days in the pen might just work out for him.
So I can get a year in prison for having a joint on my person, but I can invade someone's privacy and become the cause of their death and just suffer a month? Interesting how that works.
Seems like a reasonable sentence to me. As stupid, and intolerant, as what he did was and as severe as the consequences were there's nothing gained by excessive punishment. Would a longer prison sentence really act as a deterrent to similar behaviour? Isn't a criminal record, the court process he's been through, a month in prison and having to live with the consequences of his actions enough for doing something stupid and not considering how bad the consequences might be?
Some poor bastard has already lost his life. Another has pretty much ruined his. Sticking someone in prison longer doesn't make any of that better; it's just an expensive way to cause more suffering.
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.
There were tons of mitigating circumstances including the parents of the dead boy publicly saying they didn't want the young man to suffer a harsh sentence or extended jail time. One life lost was enough. A sentence of over a year would have almost certainly meant deportation for a young man who has never known a home other than the United States. He also has to receive counseling and pay $10,000 towards a program to prevent hate crimes.
Of course lawyers on both sides are unhappy, one side wanting exoneration, the other wanting public human sacrifice. This is a tough one. The kid did something terrible and it had an impact that can never fully be reconciled. That said, it was a stupid, childish, thoughtless action for a kid, and if we crushed every young person who committed such an action we'd have about 12 Stepford Children walking around to send cards to the rest of our children in permanent detention. I know I did some rather profoundly stupid things when I was his age and I hurt some innocent people's feelings. Thank goodness, the harm wasn't permanent, and I could clean up the mess I made. I don't have a clue how I'd deal with what he's facing.
The whole idea of "hate crime" is pretty ridiculous anyway.
If you assault someone because you hate gays/minorities/etc, why is that worse than assaulting someone because you hate them individually? It just reinforces the idea that we should treat certain groups of people differently. Is that really the best way to address prejudice in society?
Does anyone really think some dumb asshole bigot is going to think "there are hate crime laws I better not commit this crime"?
You seem to be living in the fantasy world that everyone is strong and should be able to take punishment.
People are weak. They don't know how to cope. But they are still human beings and worthy of being cared for and protected. We should be outraged that this poor gay kid was driven to suicide.
This case is different that secretly filming your roommate having straight sex for exactly those reasons. Dharum Ravi exploited Tyler Clementi when he spied on him. He exploited his fears and insecurities.
Don't consider crimes like black boxes. The entire circumstances matter. The motives matter. Society had a role, no doubt. Tyler Clementi lamented that people on Ravi's twitter feed were disgusted by Clementi's relationship but not one of them called out Ravi and said that what he was doing was wrong. More than anything else, this is probably what drove him to suicide. He saw people unanimously disgusted by him with no defenders or anyone who opposed his privacy being violated. He had no faith that even if he changed roommates that conditions would get better. Think about that before you call him a coward again you fucking asshole.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
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.
Depends on intent. If you recorded the former with intent to jack off to it later, that's invasion of privacy. If you did so with the intent to blackmail a subset of the participants, that's, well, blackmail. If you recorded gay sex with the intent to out a subset of the participants as being gay, intending further to mock them, discriminate against them, or whatever else in an atmosphere where such proclivities are frowned upon, that's a hate crime.
You are talking about things you don't know nothing about. There is a major difference between secretly filming gay sex and straight sex between someone. Both are just wrong, but the first one is more so because it carries social prejudice along with it.
The only way to have a society without discrimination is to treat everyone indiscriminately. That applies to the law, as well.
How do I know? Because I am currently dating a shemale. I really cute and loving one, mind you.
And I'm sure that she just loves being called a shemale, too! Never mind that every transgendered person I've ever met has generally considered the term to be pretty damn derogatory.
Secretly videotaping interracial sex is just as bad. How do I know? Because I'm currently dating a nigger. I really cute and loving one, mind you.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
The sticks and stones thing works up until you introduce the video. It is not hard to imagine how a video like this could be used for blackmail and even the idea of it being leaked could be devastating to just about anyway. Idk about you, but I would not just shrug off the idea of a video of me in that sort of compromised situation being seen by everyone on my dorm room floor (much less parents, etc.).
Secretly filming your roommate having gay sex is a little worse than just saying something random and mean on slashdot.
If I were to overreact like that, I would have been dead by now, several times over. Somehow I don't think that I would want anyone to be punished for my own instability, though.
That is a weaselly statement. Ravi isn't being punished for Tyler Clementi's instability. He is being punished for spying on him, trying to destroy evidence, and trying to coordinate statements with a witness. He is guilty as sin for all of those crimes.
But even if he were being punished for causing Clementi's suicide, he had to have known that he was selecting an extremely vulnerable victim. He knew that Clementi was a loner and semi-closeted and was afraid of being open about it--and then he exploited him. If he were to be charged with the hypothetical crime of pushing this poor gay kid to suicide, then he wouldn't be punished for Clementi's instability. He would instead be punished for exploiting it.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
But they are still human beings and worthy of being cared for and protected.
.....and the government is going to be the one to do that, huh?
Maybe I DON'T WANT MY FUCKING TAX DOLLARS being spent to "protect" a weakling, by punishing the strong.
If we continue to coddle weak mindedness in our society, the only possible outcome will be our eventual downfall, and enslavement to a society which chose another path.
Bullshit. Picking on gay kids makes society weak. Our society will be much stronger when that type of behavior is minimized.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
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.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
Maybe I DON'T WANT MY FUCKING TAX DOLLARS being spent to "protect" a weakling, by punishing the strong. If we continue to coddle weak mindedness in our society, the only possible outcome will be our eventual downfall, and enslavement to a society which chose another path.
So protecting minorities like Alan Turing (homosexual) or Einstein (Jew) from persecution would result in no benefits to our society?
Fight hate the way the Southern Poverty Law Center does it: through civil law. Imposing huge monetary fines and loss of assets actually does a whole lot more to bring down hatred than incarceration. Look at the decimation of some racist and militia-style hate groups where their assets were seized and turned over to the victim. Without a hate pulpit to preach from, these groups dissolve and disband. Anti-hate laws do little to curb the behavior - you have to hit'em in the wallet to stop it.
If he had some reason to suspect the victim would take it badly, then YES. It speaks to the level of malice. And in this case, he would have to be a drooling moron to not realize it could go badly.
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.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Your logic would re-legalize all kinds of discrimination.
On the contrary, it would make all kinds of discrimination equally illegal.
The intent behind refusing to seat someone in your restaurant would not be relevant.
The intent behind refusing to allow someone to attend your school would not be relevant.
The intent behind refusing to rent someone an apartment would not be relevant.
The intent behind refusing to loan a family money to buy a house in a certain neighborhood would not be relevant.
The intent behind refusing to employ someone would not be relevant.
Note that none of these is illegal unless the intent is to deny members of protected classes.
Which is a problem. If that kind of discrimination is still a real problem in US (is it?), then it should be plainly illegal to deny this kind of thing to anyone without a good reason, regardless of whether they belong to a "protected class" or not.
Frankly, the very term "protected class" is a slap in the face of equality. The moment you start drawing arbitrary lines between individuals and segregate them into "classes" of any kind, any pretense of equality goes out of the window. There's no such thing as "positive discrimination" - when someone gets preferential treatment, that's just a politically correct way of saying that others get less. The notion that classes should get "the same baseline of opportunity" is ridiculous on its face; it's people who should get that, and the only way you can do it is by refusing to categorize them into classes in the first place, and treating any case of unwarranted discrimination equally.
It seems to me to be the opposite.
Look at similar cases. A guy in Ohio videotapes a woman in the shower in his own house, and he gets 7 years and has to register as a sex offender.
This guy videotapes gays and gets 30 days.
If there was favoritism towards gays, this guy would have gotten more than 30 days...
+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.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.