Politics

Dharun Ravi Found Guilty on Most Charges

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Former Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi has been convicted of "bias, invasion of privacy, hindering apprehension and witness tampering" in connection with the Tyler Clementi suicide. 

I hope future generations will find the preceding paragraph as baffling as I do. In what the Newark Star-Ledger calls a "high profile case that sparked awareness of cyber-bullying and harassment of gay teenagers," Ravi cammed roommate Clementi canoodling with another man, then tweeted about it. Shortly thereafter Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge.

Jacob Sullum on the Clementi/Ravi case: Lack of evidence that Ravi's snooping led to any shaming, outing, or any other public response. Why giving a person 10 years for having expressed unpopular ideas is not different from old-school thought-crime prosecution. How deleting an embarrassing tweet can get you time for "hindering apprehension."