Rutgers Webcam Scandal Revisited: 6 Months Later...



the whole idea of hate crimes is ridiculous.

Say I hate you because you are an asshole and I punch you in the face. How is that different than if I hate you because you are white and female and I punch you in the face. Either way, I committed a crime and you got punched in the face. My supposed motivations should not make that crime into an additional crime.

I think you could say that if you punched someone in the face because they were an "asshole" then you might be able to prove some kind of provocation for the deed or at least a reasoning for doing it...one mans "asshole" is an attorneys "verbal abuse"

But punching some white chick in the face because she's a white chick is a different story.


Now the real conundrum lies in what if she is both an asshole and a white chick...
 
Hate crime is fine and punching someone because they are white should be punished MUCH harsher than punching someone because they are an asshole.

The problem here is that if you punch someone because they are white you get let's say a 6 month jail term. But if you punch that same person for the same reason but since they are mentally unstable they go on and kill themselves does not warrant a 5-10 year jail term. That is the issue I have with this.

This person should be trialled for his actions and be punished for that, not for what the victim did afterwards.
 
posted by advive:
The problem here is that if you punch someone because they are white you get let's say a 6 month jail term. But if you punch that same person for the same reason but since they are mentally unstable they go on and kill themselves does not warrant a 5-10 year jail term. That is the issue I have with this.

This person should be trialled for his actions and be punished for that, not for what the victim did afterwards.

Setting aside any arguments about the validity of hate crimes as a concept, in the article linked above it states:


The charges do not link the alleged spying to Clementi's suicide.

So he's facing 5-10 years without the suicide even being considered a factor.


Frank
 
Find it a bit hard to believe he would face the same sentence if the guy didn't kill himself. Trying to make an example out of him me thinks...
 
The guy who filmed it is a fucking douchebag but you can't blame him for someone commiting suicide simply because they were caught on video sucking a cock. I think the gay guy obviously had much bigger issues and this was just the straw that broke the camels back or sucked the camels cock.

Reminds me of The Sopranos.. when Vito got caught sucking a cock.. did he kill himself? No! He ran away and got the fuck out of dodge until Phil did the right fucking thing and whacked him. Shame the Spatafore family like that? I'm fucking embarassed.

Don't get me started on that fucking John Sacramoni who cried like a fucking girl/faggot either..

Hmm, what was I talking about again? I've had a bit to drink.. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMYWC0tMZsk"]Aussie piss up yo! It's Friday[/ame]
 
It's a tricky concept, basing crime and punishment on intent and not just actions. In many cases the intent is not at all clear from anything that is observable. Who's to say that the guy who filmed it wasn't rejoicing in the gayness of his roommate and was so exuberant that he wanted to share it with the world? A love crime - is there a law for that? (probably, f'ing overlegislated society)
 
the whole idea of hate crimes is ridiculous.

Say I hate you because you are an asshole and I punch you in the face. How is that different than if I hate you because you are white and female and I punch you in the face. Either way, I committed a crime and you got punched in the face. My supposed motivations should not make that crime into an additional crime.

Exactly.

I can't believe what this shit country is turning into. Makes me fucking ill.
 
the whole idea of hate crimes is ridiculous.

Say I hate you because you are an asshole and I punch you in the face. How is that different than if I hate you because you are white and female and I punch you in the face. Either way, I committed a crime and you got punched in the face. My supposed motivations should not make that crime into an additional crime.

Non-whites, females, and homosexuals always get preferential treatment, that's just how the world works. Punch a straight white guy in the face and you'll probably get a warning, punch a black lesbian girl and you'll get the death penalty.

5-10 years is a little extreme regardless of whether you think the roommate was out of line or not because there's no way you could argue that there was a reasonable assumption that the kid would kill himself if he posted the video. If I got really drunk one day and jacked off to gay porn and my buddy put it on Youtube, I wouldn't give a fuck and I'd probably think it was hilarious. Kids need to stop basing their entire lives on what other people think of them ... in the end, no one gives a fuck anyway.
 
This is so fucked up. If his roommate was straight, and committed suicide for being filmed banging a chick, this would not be called a "hate crime". But just because the dude was gay, now it's a "hate crime". Wtf. If I was a homosexual black female, I could probably sue someone every single day for a "hate crime" and make bank off that shit.
 
The fact that you are asking this is a little disturbing...
No it's not. His is the normal and reasonable way of assessing things. It's disturbing that some are willing to enhance punishment for crimes against certain groups simply because of social divisions around them, like sexual preference, race, religion, etc.
As conv3rsion indicated, the motivation behind the crime is rarely as significant as the crime itself.

Can you not see the slippery slope here?
Motive based on a dislike of (or at best an indifference to) the victim is a given for almost any crime.

What the rise in "hate crime" prosecutions, resulting case law, and legislation will do is to create MORE "hate crimes". One only has to look at most drug laws, gun laws, even traffic laws for examples.
 
What the fuck is wrong with you people.....

5 to 10 years for a video he posted online?


Civil and punitive damages? Yes. I'm sure his pain and suffering would be worth something to some of you slack-jaw dumbass jurors.


Criminal charges? What law did he break exactly? Maybe some privacy laws.

Is the invasion of privacy a HATE CRIME?



What if you called me a cold-hearted, mean-spirited, hateful bigot, half-wit from Georgia and then i go kill myself.

Guess what mother fucker... you just commited a hate crime towards retarded white men. Enjoy your prison time.
 
the whole idea of hate crimes is ridiculous.

Say I hate you because you are an asshole and I punch you in the face. How is that different than if I hate you because you are white and female and I punch you in the face. Either way, I committed a crime and you got punched in the face. My supposed motivations should not make that crime into an additional crime.
this
 
if he has a good lawyer, im expecting he ends up in prison for 2 years. I think thats fair that given what he did (which was to post video of his roomate having sex on the internet likely to embarrass him and then to lie about it) but if he gets 10 years because of ultimately 2 additional facts (his roomate was gay and his roomate ended up killing himself) that doesn't seem fair to me. its impossible to prove he did this only because his roomate was gay, and its not really fair to hold him responsible for the roomate committing suicide, which is clearly playing into this for them to be talking about a 5-10 year sentence.

Suicide is the most selfish act a person can commit and I feel like the parents of the dead roomate are taking out their guilt on the defendant because they are directly responsible for their son being so ashamed of being gay that he committed suicide. In my opinion its much less likely that happens if the guy is confortable being gay because his family supports him.

Also there is no way Rutgers should have any responsibility in this at all unless the gay roommate requested to be moved because the defendant is a bigot. Other than that, how the hell is the university at any fault here. Parents just want vengeance wherever they can get it and I'm ascribing that to their own guilt.
 
I have been reading some articles about this former Rutgers University student, 19-year-old Dharun Ravi, who just gave a not guilty plea to 15 charges today in a New Brunswick, N.J. courtroom. As we all know Ravi is accused of using a webcam to spy on his roommate during a same-sex intimate encounter with a webcam. The roommate, Tyler Clementi, was an eighteen-year old violinist. The webcam incident, which apparently led to Clementi choosing suicide, made gay violence a national topic. I found this here: Not guilty plea entered in Rutgers webcam suicide case, newstype.com. This case must remind us to respect each others privacy as long as it does not affect ours. A life was wasted and another will be because of invading others privacy. Let this be a lesson for us to be more responsible on any act that we are doing.