If the jury agrees with Mr. Altman and passes on the bias charges and finds Ravi guilty of everything else, I think it a win for the defense. I am guessing the judge will not push for prison time on the hindering charge.
Bottom line: Mr. Ravi gets some sort of community service time and that's it. About the same as the plea deal that he refused. EXCEPT, Ravi is not pleading to felony charges and the possibility of being deported.
My view of this is that is was overreaching for the prosecution from the start. If this is what happens, is justice done, I think so. Did Mr. Ravi, et. al., learn a lesson from this? I would certainly think so. Will society learn a lesson from this? Depends. Maybe incoming
Freshmen should be made very aware of this case.
I wanted to return to this point Tim because we are pretty much in agreement. Especially so, now that the prosecution has rested and we know most if not all of the most damaging evidence they have against Ravi. Up till now we were only guessing at how much and what type of evidence they had.
It may well turn out that he gets no jail time and no felony conviction that would get him deported. I will take exception though with the idea that the prosecution should not have gone after Ravi with all the felony charges. There is the important matter of public perception. I have to say that to take Ravi to trial after he turned down the plea deal and then go easy on him, would have sent the wrong message to other bullies or would-be homophobic bullies out there.
Consider the climate in which Tyler's suicide occurred. His marked the third suicide in a month of children and young adolescents who killed themselves because of bullying at school for being gay. All but the most hardened and homophobic people in our society were sad, anguished and/or angry over this news. A message needed to be sent to elementary schools, high schools and colleges around the country that if you were caught bullying someone to the point of suicide...that you would face very serious consequences. That you would not get just a slap on the wrist. Leave that thought in the minds of the bullies themselves as to whether they might take things too far and push someone over the edge.
Take some of that worry and preoccupation and put it where it belongs anyway...off of the victim and onto the shoulders of the perpetrator. Let the bully stay awake at night in a cold sweat wondering if a prank at school, the playground, the mall, the dorm, or a post online or wherever went too far. Let him or her know by example from this set of circumstances that there can be very negative consequences to what they are doing or contemplating doing. Maybe the thought of losing their own future will be a deterrent.
If the prosecution had let Ravi off easy with the charges we would have been having a whole different kind of discussion. It would have been over whether gay lives are cheaper than straight peoples'. Not that as a gay person I see the world as "us" and "them". I don't. I see all people equally. Nonetheless we would have been in an uproar over whether there was institutionalized homophobia in the U.S. criminal justice system had they played softball with him.
Did the state of New Jersey
want to spend several hundred thousand dollars (or more) of taxpayer money prosecuting this case? Of course not. They wanted him to accept blame and take the plea deal. And then do the penance of community service and probation. The national and international outrage over this case was intense. Once he snubbed the plea deal and forced them to trial, then why shouldn't they throw the book at him? And then let a jury sort it out.
I agree that he is not the poster child of the homophobic skinhead bully who sets out to make every gay classmate's life a living hell, online and offline, day in and day out. Ravi will suffer more intense punitive circumstances for the rest of his life because this case went to trial and got so much publicity. Regardless of course whether he is convicted on any felonies or not. Is that fair to him? Perhaps not. But were the events set into motion by Ravi's actions fair to Tyler?
For many of the same motivations as the prosecution, the judge will be under enormous public pressure not to go lenient on Ravi. I expect that most of the misdemeanor charges upon which he is convicted will draw close to the maximum sentences allowed. The judge knows that he needs to send a message of deterrence to other bullies out there. Even if Ravi's case itself is not a perfect example of bullying. The judge is also well aware of the 1000 lb elephant in the room. Even if Ravi is not charged in Tyler's death...a man is still dead.
