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"Justice Has Been Served" For Tyler Clementi: Jurors Discuss Verdict
By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 17, 2012
Modified Mar 17, 2012
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By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 17, 2012
Modified Mar 17, 2012
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Yesterday, a New Jersey jury found Dharun Ravi guilty of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation for spying on his Rutgers University roommate Tyler Clementi in September 2010. There were multiple counts (related to different incidents) that the jurors had to deliberate and one, Bruno Ferreira, told the Star-Ledger, "It was very hard, very difficult. Nothing means we would be personally biased toward the defendant. You have to look at all the facts and the evidence. That’s why you have 24 counts guilty and 11 not guilty. Witness statements and the evidence were not there to prove those... This was very difficult, but it was a really good experience. You feel like justice has been served."
Clementi, who was gay, killed himself the day after Ravi publicized that he was going to spy on him for a second time, and while Ravi didn't face charges related to his death, jurors had to work with evidence from the prosecution—including the fact that Ravi admitted to the police that he invaded Clementi's privacy; Clementi saw Ravi's Twitter account, which referred to Clementi's sexuality and watching him during an intimate encounter as well as invited his [Ravi's] friends to watch a livestream of Clementi's encounter; Clementi requested a room change from a resident advisor; Ravi deleted Tweets and other messages. While the prosecution said that Ravi's actions, to spy and promote others to spy on Clementi and his guest, were borne out of hatred of gays, Ravi's defense tried to emphasize that the then-18-year-old was just stupid and immature.
Another juror, Kashad Leverett, said, "It was pretty hard to think about Tyler, because he wasn’t present to give his thoughts. But in the evidence that was provided, it showed that he believed he was being intimidated because of his sexual orientation."
Juror Lynn Audet told the NY Times that the fact that Ravi spied on Clementi a second time "is what changed my mind. A reasonable person would have closed it and ended it there, not tweeted about it." And of the texts Ravi send to Clementi, apologizing and saying that he had a close friend who was gay, Audet said, "My first impression was to believe what he said. Then, as we started reading stuff, we found things in there that I interpreted more as covering... The friend he claimed was a good friend in high school, that person was never presented as a defense witness. If that person had come forward and said, ‘Hey, we’ve been good friends, and he knows I’m gay and he doesn’t have a problem with it,’ that might have swayed me in the other direction."
Leverett was emphatic with the Star-Ledger: "We did the right thing by making the right decision, only because of the evidence that was proven. Some people might believe that he’s not innocent or that he’s guilty. But at the same time, I’ve learned in this process, that if you’re not in the courtroom, you won’t know the real details."
Ravi faces up to 10 years in prison; his sentencing is May 21.
Tagged
bias intimidation
dharun ravi
hate crime
invasion of privacy
rutgers university
tyler clementi
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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