After Dharun Ravi announced he would not be testifying in his own defense, his attorneys rested their case this afternoon, which means closing arguments will begin tomorrow. Ravi stands accused of secretly filming his roommate, Tyler Clementi, kissing another male student in the days before Clementi committed suicide in September 2010.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Ravi declined to take the stand, telling the judge, “It’s my decision, yes,” after the final defense witness finished testifying. If found guilty, Ravi—who is charged with 15 counts of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation and witness and evidence tampering—could face 10 years in prison.
Most of the nine witnesses the defense called up were family friends who said they’d never heard Ravi say anything homophobic—mainly because the topic never came up. The prosecution, meanwhile, has done a fairly good job of shredding Ravi’s claim he never intended to screen Clementi’s assignation for an audience and that his activity “was simply childish behavior by an immature first-year college student, but not criminal,” according to the Tribune.
What say you, Queerty jury? Should Ravi do hard time for spying on Clementi—or is this a case of society just looking for someone to blame for an unfathomable tragedy?
How about we take this to the next level?
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Jimmy Velvet
String him up!
Demiel
I’ll admit what he did was unethical, but I’m unsure that the punishment is matching the crime… I jsut don’t know that I am totally comfortable with this.
Quentin
“Should Ravi do hard time for spying on Clementi—or is this a case of society just looking for someone to blame for an unfathomable tragedy?”
Both. Because he is a mirror image of the society.
Drew
I don’t think he should do hard time, he and Molly didn’t know that Tyler had issues with depression and that Tyler was suicidal and he’s not responsible for the actions of another person. In the end only Tyler knows why he killed himself and it was Tyler’s personal choice. I do however think that Ravi should just be punished for spying on Tyler without Tyler’s consent and that’s it.
Mrs. Robinson
Convict him of something and then simply deport him since he’s not an American citizen.
B
Regarding Querty’s question, “Should Ravi do hard time for spying on Clementi—or is this a case of society just looking for someone to blame for an unfathomable tragedy?”
My guesses. Bias — 90% chance of getting off assuming a conviction of lesser charges. Third degree invasion of privacy — 70% chance of getting off assuming enough to convict him of a fourth degree invasion of privacy. Fourth degree invasion of privacy — 60% chance of getting off, primarily due to ambiguous evidence.
The worst evidence against Ravi is described in http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/03/06/computer-systems-manager-set-to-testify-in-rutgers-webcam-spying-trial/ which claims the prosecution showed that he sent text messages, etc. encouraging people to view his web cam. Ravi claims he was joking. the prosecutor claims he wasn’t. The article includes quotes of his “keep the gays away” statement and that was clearly a joke – he was talking about a “computer alert” if someone was in his bed when he wasn’t there – but the prosecution claims it shows malice towards gays. Inviting people to view a sexual encounter can turn a fourth degree crime into a third degree crime, but no such viewing actually took place. Ravi claimed he had turned the chat session off and some of the final messages from Clementi indicated that Clementi had powered off the computer by turning off the power strip.
The holes in this part of the prosecutor’s case are that a guy from Rutger’s IT department testified that Ravi’s computer was completely silent for two hours – no traffic at all. His data should include traffic both to and from the computer. If I were on the jury, I’d want to know why, if Ravi had invited a number of people, not one seems to have even tried to connect to Ravi’s chat session (assuming incoming requests were from his computer, not a remote server, but if a server somewhere on the Internet was involved, there should have been testimony from the organization running that). The lack of network traffic is evidence in favor of Ravi. According to http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/ravi_lawyer_cross-examines_mb.html M.B. (Clementi’s boyfriend) stated that on Sept 21, he did not see the web cam on top of the computer, but did on Sept 19 (when Ravi saw the video for the first time). On Sept 21, Clementi had sent a friend a text that he turned off the power strip in case there was a second web cam.
So, a jury is going to have to decide the following:
On Sept 19, did Ravi turn on the web cam under circumstances in which a reasonable person thought he might view someone unclothed or in a sexual encounter without that person’s permission? The evidence against Ravi is that he saw a couple of seconds of kissing. The evidence in his favor is that he seemed genuinely surprised.
On Sept 21, Ravi sent some incriminating messages, and apparently fiddled with the web cam, testing it. He claims he shut the program off, that the incriminating messages were simply jokes, and that terms like “I dare you” were his way of saying “don’t do it.” The evidence against Ravi is what he did and literally said. The evidence in his favor is the lack of network traffic (not consistent with a viewing invitation meant to be taken seriously). Then we have M.B. not noticing the web cam on Sept 21. Was it there and not noticed, did Clementi remove it (not needed with the power strip turned off), or did Ravi have second thoughts and removed the web cam instead before the others showed up?
In general, if Ravi was acting out of bias towards gays, one would have expected there to be witnesses hearing homophobic remarks from him. But there were none.
So, the evidence as reported in the press (which is only an approximation to what the jury actually saw and heard) seems to suggest that Ravi will get off on the bias part of it. He has a good chance of getting off on the Sept 19 viewing due to plausibly not expecting to see even kissing a few minutes after he had left his room (and it seems he had nothing to do with the later uses of the web cam that evening). For Sept 21, he might be convicted of something, but it really will depend on what the jury believes there is reasonable doubt. Ravi’s behavior on Sept 21 is consistent with a person planning a burglary who buys some tools, tests them, and then has second thoughts before actually going out of the house to commit the crime. It is also consistent with a burglar who planned everything and then found that the homeowner had installed a motion detector (turned on while the burglar was still on the sidewalk), at which point the
burglar got back in his car and drove away. There’s a threshold beyond which these sort of actions become “attempted burglary” rather than “thinking about burglary” or “planning a burglary”. In Ravi’s case, the jury is going to have to decide if he passed a threshold beyond which his actions were criminal instead of highly inappropriate, perhaps sufficient to be expelled but not sufficient for jail.
wingfield
Just STOP SHOWING HIS BLOODSHOT EYES…. jeez they freak me out!!
Kevin Donohue
Had Tyler not killed himself this never would have made it to court. I think this was a childish prank that had tragic consequences, but worse goes on in most gym locker rooms. I think Dharun has paid enough of a price for his actions and I do not see how justice or society will be served by putting him in prison. I say offer him community service at an LGBTQ organization (maybe the Trevor Project) and be done with it, although it is probably too late for this kind of deal. Bullying is a serious problem, and I am not trying to make light of it at all (having been badly bullied myself in my early teens}, but I don’t think this was on a par with a club-someone-over-the-head-with-a-baseball-bat-for-being-gay kind of bias crime and shouldn’t be treated as such. Suicide is also a very complex issue, and I’m not sure a direct causal link can be made between Dharun’s actions and Tyler’s death – I realize that this is not the legal issue at hand, but I do think it is the subtext to the entire indictment.
Steve
B-
I repeat what I said earlier: you are either the least competent attorney or the worst pretend attorney that I have ever read on the internet. You may recall the many hundreds of words you spewed about the importance of the timing of the firist activation of the cam. Critical, you asserted, to the determination of invasion of privacy and likely to be the subject of extensive defense argument. In fact, you said that the defense would be permitted to put on an argument that revolved around hypothetical scenarios (i.e., Ravi went back to the room to get a book) for which there is no admissible evidence. That alone would have revolutionized the law of evidence.
Needless to say, there was no defense presentation on that issue, let alone one involving hypothetical scenarios. Now you favor us with your predictions, complete with probabilities on individual charges. You give Ravi at worst a 60% chance of acquittal on the lowest privacy charge based on “ambiguous evidence.” There is nothing ambiguous about the evidence. It is abundantly clear from his own tweets and the testimony of his friend that he set up the cam for a “viewing party”. Multiple witnesses, including the loathsome Michelle Huang, testified that he urged his friends to tune in “for real.” He admits on videotape that he spied on and attempted to spy on Clementi. If this is ambiguous, then there is no such thing in the world as a clear case.
You are a sorry excuse for a lawyer, whether real or pretend. I do hope that you have the cajones to come back here and take well-deserved abuse when Ravi is convicted. Also, if you are an actual lawyer, please identify yourself so that we might know to avoid you if ever seeking representation.
Kevin Donohue
I also might point out the the irony that the biggest anti-LGBTQ bully in The Garden State is not only not on trial, he still sits behind the Governor’s desk.
monroeplace
It’s time for him to see the inside of a jail where he’ll really get some great photo opts.
Little Kiwi
I’m queerty’s newest troll go to my blog and watch my youtube videos!
Brian
So I’m a lawyer, a gay guy and lived in a college dorm not far from these guys in Philadelphia that I shared with a straight roommate. Here’s my opinion on it.
I think that Tyler was the person in the great wrong here. He had NO right to exclude his roommate from the room at ANY time for any reason.
Oh dude, I’m getting laid, keep out, is just not OK. I don’t care if you’re straight or gay. So, Tyler had absolutely no right of privacy. Didn’t the defendant have every right to walk into that room at any moment he so chose regardless of what had been discussed with Tyler? I think so. Wasn’t he paying the exact same amount of room and board?
Moving on to the camera. Any clown under 30 knows about vid cams, so to say that Tyler expected privacy with all that tech in his room is something only his grandma would believe. (PS I’m 45)
And as to the sharing with other people, so what? OMG, Tyler is gay?!! It honestly makes no difference whether the message comes from the roomie’s words or the pics he’s taken. Roomie has every right to talk about it just as Tyler had every right to do the same with the rooomie’s girlfriends.
NJ is so ridiculous about some things! I know, I lived there until I was 18.
Dave
How is this news? It’s not surprising that he’s not going to take the stand and testify at all. In cases like this and when someone’s on trial it’s very rare that a lawyer will tell their client that’s being prosecuted, ‘Go on take the stand!’ and unless they choose to ignore this counsel they can take the stand but it’s foolish.
Andrew
Brian, I agree that Tyler should have told his roommate Ravi something like: “You know I’m gay and sometimes I will be bringing my male tricks or hook ups back here just like you will bring women who you’re dating or hooking up with back here. So don’t be surprised if you come in here and I have a guy in bed with me.”
Also you do bring up a good point that in college dorms while you have a roommate you don’t have complete privacy at all when you’re living in a dorm with a roommate. If you want privacy you should get a single dorm room without a roommate. Plus the dorm’s resident adviser and/or security can enter into your dorm room at any time for any reason.
B
No. 9 · Steve wrote, “B- I repeat what I said earlier: you are either the least competent …” Well, I’ll tell you what you are – an ill-bred moron who starts to spew repeated ad-hominem attacks when he hears something that doesn’t fit his preconceptions. I’ve been more than polite with you ignoring your infantile behavior. It appears that you need something more direct to get it through your thick skull.
Your statement, “you said that the defense would be permitted to put on an argument that revolved around hypothetical scenarios” is a lie. I rather gave examples of what sort of things the defense could bring up, if it chose to, but never said precisely what the defense would actually do. Rather, I was pointing out that a conviction is not a certainty. I’ll refer you to http://abcnews.go.com/US/rutgers-trial-prosecution-make-case-dharun-ravi/story?id=15877699 :
“‘The prosecutor has presented a very good case as to invasion of privacy, a decent case as to hindering apprehension and witness tampering, and a bare bones case for bias intimidation,’ said John Fahy, former New Jersey prosecutor who is now a criminal defense attorney.
“Robert Honecker, also a former prosecutor agrees: ‘A good defense attorney exploits each and every weakness in the State’s case. Altman has been very good doing that up to now. Expect him to be even better in the defense case.’
So, it seems others agree – a conviction is not certain.
You wrote, “You give Ravi at worst a 60% chance of acquittal on the lowest privacy charge based on “ambiguous evidence.” There is nothing ambiguous about the evidence. It is abundantly clear from his own tweets and the testimony of his friend that he set up the cam for a “viewing party””
Well, you got that wrong. What I said (see above) was “The evidence against Ravi is what he did and literally said. The evidence in his favor is the lack of network traffic …”
Gee. he supposedly sets up a cam for a “viewing party “(claiming afterwards that the statement was meant as a joke) and so many people take it seriously that there is ZERO network traffic going to his computer. Even with the computer off, there should be a few packets coming in as people try to join the chat session (either to Ravi’s machine or to some server relaying the video stream). Where are those packets? You’d think some people would have started to chat with him if only out of curiosity. Why didn’t that happen? Did everyone hearing about the party assume he was joking based on past behavior? Also, if Ravi was using a server, there would have been periodic “keep-alive” packets being sent to or from the server, so you’d have a record showing that the chat session was active up to that point. Where’s the record? If the jury asks those questions, there’s going to be a discussion about whether that constitutes reasonable doubt, which is all Ravi needs to avoid a conviction.
The other problem is that there is no evidence as to whether Ravi had shut off the cam (as he claimed) before Clementi returned to the room.
Peter
Ravi, by not testifying, you missed your only chance to show the jury that you are remorseful, and not the total shit that you look like.
While you wait for the inevitable to occur, you should do the following:
1. Scope out the NJ prison system and find out which one has the best prison proctologist. You’re going to need him, so make sure you request that location.
2. Practice jerking off at home, but making absolutely no noise when you finish. In jail, any whimpering while you’re getting banged by your cellmate will be an invitation for the whole cellblock to pull train.
3. In the slammer, even if you’re vegetarian, do not order special meals. You can trade the meat for other prisoner’s toilet paper.
4. You might want to get your head shaved by the stylist of your choice for when you go in. Better than getting lice when you get your head buzzed by a fellow prisoner who is the barber.
5. Start noticing license tags on cars as you go to and from court. You’re going to be making them soon.
6. Start working out with a personal trainer a few times before you enter. Prisons are known for their weight rooms, and you could leave there totally buff on a 30-42 month exercise plan.
7. Pick a religion,any religion , or even all of them. Go to all their services in jail. You get extra points for good behavior for that.
8. At the end of your second year there, ask to go back to India for completing your term there. Lots of foreign prisoners do that, and since you aren’t in college anymore, it will be like junior year abroad.
9.Finally keep a prison diary. You can record all your life lessons about getting along with your new roommate, your cellmate. You will learn alot about invasion of privacy when you gotta shit on the tin can in your cell, in full public view. You’ll get used to it.
Cam
@Kevin Donohue: said…
“Had Tyler not killed himself this never would have made it to court. I think this was a childish prank that had tragic consequences, but worse goes on in most gym locker rooms.”
__________________
Don’t even try it…..If this had been a Freshman Girl that a roomate had filmed and invited guys from the dorm to come and watch people would be calling for blood.
Worse goes on in a locker room? Really? Outing a kid to the entire school?
Oh and lastly, he tried to intimidate witnesses and obstruct justice. Are those youth full pranks?
Cam
@Brian: said…
“So I’m a lawyer, a gay guy and lived in a college dorm not far from these guys in Philadelphia that I shared with a straight roommate. Here’s my opinion on it.
I think that Tyler was the person in the great wrong here. He had NO right to exclude his roommate from the room at ANY time for any reason.”
___________________
You’re a liar. It’s easy to spot the liars on here because they ALWAYS think they have to justify who they are. For example, they will say things like “As a gay man, I feel that…..” See, the rest of us don’t bother saying that because we know who we are.
So since you lied about one, you no doubt lied about the other. Tyler had every right to expect privacy in his dorm room unless Ravi explicitly told him he would be filming. A boss who films his employees without letting them know about a camera can be jailed. Funny thing is….if you were a lawyer, you would have already known that wouldn’t you?
Kostas
@Peter:
Let me add to Peter’s list:
10. When you get a new prison jump suit, don’t ask around if it makes your butt look big. Everyone is already staring at your ass, and your question could bring trouble.
11. Do you do manscaping? If so, grow the bush back immediately. You do not want the word to get around that you are the pretty boy of cellblock two.
12. Get a few tatoos to toughen up your look. However, no luxury product logo tatoos like “Benetton” or “J.Crew” or “Louis Vuitton”. Stick to the motor cycle guy stuff.
13. Do you know any Spanish? Better learn some fast, and don’t blurt out that your mom’s cleaning lady and your dad’s driver are from Honduras.
14. Do you know that K-Y comes in individual use packets? They can be hidden in the binding of a large bible, brought in by visitors each time. They will make a day or two after a visit “slide by”. However, you may need 4 or 5 for one of those giant schlongs from some guys from Newark.
Kostas
Closing arguments in the case are being live streamed on towleroad. com now .
disco lives
He was offered a plea bargain to do community service and he had the nerve to turn that down…lock him up.
evanb
@Brian: Interesting that you say you’re “a lawyer” and yet apparently believe that a right to privacy is eliminated because you personally don’t approve of one roommate asking another to vacate the premises for a bit while sex happens (this, btw, is pretty much standard operating behavior for college roommates of any sexual orientation, as you may recall, and hardly outlandish or unexpected; over time, Dharun would no doubt have asked the same). Also interesting is that you seem to think that because there’s a computer in a room there is no expectation of privacy, a conclusion with which I suspect few courts outside of Mississippi would agree. So an individual in his or her shared home has no expectation of privacy if a computer has a webcam? Really? Any precedents to cite on that conclusion? And whether you personally like it or not, secretly taking pictures of others engaged in sexual activities (including shirtless kissing) and posting them on the web constitutes invasion of privacy under both state statutes and established case law.
Sounds to me like you’re blaming the victim quite a bit here, and blithely dismissing law and fact where it interferes with your presumptions.
Storm
Convict and deport.
Neal
I don’t think that Ravi should be deported, punished for spying yes but not deported.
People here don’t know anything about trials. When someone’s on the defense you’re not supposed to testify at all.
Huh ...
@Peter: @Kostas: Hahah! LOL! I too think rape is hilarious!
PS: You’re both assholes.
Xerxes
Dhrun Ravi – the sad thing is, I think you do not have a conscience.
B
No. 17 · Peter wrote, “Ravi, by not testifying, you missed your only chance to show the jury that you are remorseful, and not the total shit that you look like.”
First, juries are generally instructed that a defendant not testifying is not to be taken as an indication of guilt. Second, there are cogent reasons for an innocent defendant to not testify. Maybe the defendant has no factual information to add to the defense, but due to nervousness, could come across badly during cross examination. Why give the prosecutor an additional opportunity if all the defendant can say is “I have no idea what is going on here.” (This is a general statement, not one specific to Ravi, who at a minimum did something completely outrageous that may or may not be criminal depending on the details and given how the law was written).
If Ravi technically did not do anything criminal (i.e., if was lucky), being “remorseful” might be taken as an indication of guilt. That’s not the impression the defense would want to convey.
B
No. 9 · Steve wrote, “You may recall the many hundreds of words you spewed about the importance of the timing of the firist activation of the cam. Critical, you asserted, to the determination of invasion of privacy and likely to be the subject of extensive defense argument.”
Just to illustrate how wrong Steve is, I’ll refer readers to http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/03/13/tyler-clementi-case-after-delay-rutgers-spying-trial-nears-close/
which describes how, in his closing statement, the defense attorney in fact argued that an invasion of privacy did not occur on Sept 19 (maybe both dates). I had mentioned the timing as one item the defense could bring up. It turns out that subsequent reports, which the Wall Street Journal article cited provides, are that at least some witnesses claimed that Ravi’s cam was not pointed towards Tyler’s bed, but rather towards Ravi’s bed and the door to the room. It seems that the edge of the field of view included whatever Tyler and M.B. were doing (at that point, just kissing), but that seems to have been accidental. So, the defense’s argument is that the cam was pointed a Ravi’s bed and the door to the room, neither of which are places were you’d expect Tyler to undress or have sex. Since that provides an excuse that is time independent (and which I did not know about as it was not reported earlier), the defense went with that instead, and didn’t need to argue about the elapsed time. It’s basically what I said – they are going to argue that the conditions for the viewing to be a crime were not satisfied, but using a different piece of evidence that had not yet been reported in the press when the comments were made.
As Steve pontificated about the defense, he apparently didn’t realize that those arguments would be made during closing statements (which tactically makes sense – the defense typically has the last say in the closing arguments, so placing a statement there has the advantage that the prosecutor has no opportunity to counter it, assuming the prosecution did not anticipate the statement and try to discount it in advance).
As to Steve’s childish comment, “I do hope that you have the cajones to come back here and take well-deserved abuse when Ravi is convicted,” that shows that Steve is truly clueless – I simply was pointing out the sort of arguments the defense could make and that there were reasonable arguments in the defense’s favor. “Reasonable” does not mean that the jury will find those arguments sufficiently compelling for an acquittal, but it is not like the defense had nothing in its favor at all.
lloyd
@B: It isn’t what you said: you made a big deal about the fact that the viewing took place within the first 10 minutes, but that, if anything, was evidence that Ravi’s actions were calculated. He couldn’t wait to get to Molly’s room to test his surveillance. And in his “apology,” he had the audacity to say that he was just showing Molly his computer features, accidentally saw Tyler (of course, he had no idea that something private would be occurring), and was shocked to discover what he saw. When he tried to influence her testimony later, he said, “Did you tell them that we did it on purpose?” He tried to make things appear accidental, but everything was calculated. His surprise at seeing something private was feigned, and then he immediately tweeted that he had seen his roommate making out with a dude. He needed “advice,” he later told the cops.
It is obvious that B is a condescending, obnoxious troll who gets his rocks off by calling other people dumb and infantile. It is best to ignore him. For some articles, every other post is by B (stands for you know what–that pastoral expletive). He is pompous and insensitive to other posters. He is a jerk of the same order as Ravi. His aim is just to throw out a spin that will irritate–a typical troll.
sara
Ravi’s an asshole, but I’m not sure if he’s necessarily a criminal. He should be found guilty of evidence tampering and possibly of invasion of privacy. Other than that, I’m not sure it can be proven. I think the media misconstrued the facts of the case which is really a case of a cocky, asshole of a freshman in college taking advantage of the shy, awkward kid. I don’t think it was about the fact that Tyler was gay; it was about the fact that Tyler was weak in his eyes.