>Did Dharun Ravi Commit a Hateless Hate Crime?
Jacob Sullum | March 16, 2012
As Tim Cavanaugh noted earlier this afternoon, Dharun Ravi was convicted today of most of the charges against him, including the “hate crime” of “bias intimidation,” which carries a penalty of five to 10 years in prison. Notably, the jury acquitted Ravi of deliberately trying to intimidate his roommate, Tyler Clementi, “because of” his sexual orientation on September 19, 2010, when he used a webcam in his dorm room to watch Clementi kiss another man. But as I pointed out on Wednesday, that was not the end of the matter. The jury instead concluded that Ravi invaded his roommate’s privacy “under circumstances that caused Tyler Clementi to be intimidated, and considering the manner in which the offense was committed, Clementi reasonably believed that he was selected to be the target of the offense because of sexual orientation.” That count hinges not on Ravi’s intent to intimidate but on Clementi’s inferred state of mind and a judgment about whether that state of mind was reasonable.
https://reason.com/blog/2012/03/16/did-dharun-ravi-commit-a-hateless-hate-c
