Is Dharun Ravi Guilty of 'Bias Intimidation'?

Today jurors
begin their deliberations in the trial of Dharun Ravi, the
former Rutgers University student who surreptitiously watched his
roommate, Tyler Clementi, kiss another man on the night of
September 19, 2010. Clementi jumped off the George Washington
Bridge a few days later for reasons that remain unclear. Although
Ravi officially is not charged with culpability in Clementi's
death, he would not be on trial, facing a possible sentence of 10
years in prison, if Clementi were still alive. Ravi's brief
invasion of Clementi's privacy, via a webcam in their dorm room,
and his attempt to remotely view a second encounter with the same
visitor would almost certainly have been treated as an internal
university matter. Clementi had already requested a room change,
and Ravi probably would have been disciplined, perhaps by
suspension or even expulsion?not by five to 10 years in prison, the
prescribed penalty for "bias intimidation" under New
Jersey law.
In a column
last month, I explained how that law, like other hate crime
statutes, effectively punishes people for their opinions?in this
case, opinions about gay people. But Middlesex County prosecutors
were never able to show that Ravi hated gay people in general or
Clementi in particular. It does seem clear that he was
uncomfortable about having a gay roommate and that his discomfort
was compounded by Clementi's liaisons in their dorm room with an
older man who was not a student. Ravi claimed he decided to
remotely activate his webcam from a friend's room across the hall
because he worried that the visitor (who testified during the
trial, identified only as M.B.) might steal his stuff. Friends
confirmed that concern but added that Ravi also wanted to see
if he had been correct in surmising that Clementi was gay. Ravi
nevertheless was taken aback by his glimpse of the makeout session
and turned off the camera after a few seconds. His discomfort is
apparent in the notorious tweet he sent afterward: "I went into
molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a
dude. Yay." Ravi's attempt to spy on Clementi and M.B. during
a second encounter two days later, prior to which he sent a tweet
"daring" his friends to watch, likewise suggests an ambivalent
curiosity about gay sex. His actions make him out to be an
insensitive blowhard, not a felon. There is essentially no evidence
that Ravi spied on Clementi "with a purpose to intimidate" him
"because of" his sexual orientation, as the prosecution
asserts.
But that is not the end of the matter, because the jury could
still convict Ravi of bias intimidation if it concludes that
Clementi "reasonably believed" Ravi was trying to intimidate him.
The problem for the prosecution, as Ravi's lawyer, Steven Altman,

emphasized in his closing argument, is that Clementi did not
seem intimidated. As Ian Parker points out in his detailed New
Yorker
article about the case, Clementi was not hiding his sexual
orientation, and "there's little to support the idea that he was
mortified by the thought that he'd been outed." And contrary to
popular belief, images of Clementi's encounter with M.B. were not
recorded and were never available online. Clementi initially
dismissed what he called Ravi's "five sec peep" as no big deal.
Upon reflection, he was angry, and after he saw Ravi's second tweet
he requested a new roommate. But he nevertheless met with M.B. a
second time in their dorm room (after unplugging Ravi's computer).
As Altman said, these do not seem like the actions of someone who
has been intimidated.
Still, it is possible that Clementi thought Ravi was
trying to intimidate him. It is questionable whether that
belief would have been reasonable, given that Ravi never expressed
hostility against Clementi, either to him or to anyone else. In any
event, the prosecution had to establish Clementi's state of mind
beyond a reasonable doubt. The fact that he repeatedly checked
Ravi's Twitter feed to see if there were any more messages about
him does not seem like enough.
In the end, it all comes back to Clementi's suicide, which
happened just as Ravi was sending him an apologetic text message
that Altman shared with the jury: 

I've known you were gay and I have no problem with it. In fact
one of my closest friends is gay and he and I have a very open
relationship. I just suspected you were shy about it which is why I
never broached the topic. I don?t want your freshman year to be
ruined because of a petty misunderstanding, it's adding to my
guilt. You have a right to move if you wish but I don?t want you to
feel pressured to without fully understanding the situation.

Even then, Ravi did not fully own up to what he had done,
claiming the spying had been accidental. But there seems to have
been some genuine regret mixed in with his fear of getting into
trouble (which would later lead him to try covering his electronic
tracks by altering or deleting tweets and instant messages, giving
rise to charges of "hindering apprehension"). As immature and
thoughtless as Ravi's behavior was, the prosecution has not shown
his intent was malicious. A prison sentence for Ravi can be
justified only by blaming him for Clementi's death?something the
government insists it is not doing.

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