Just read this article, I cant' agree with Fetish above that this "blows away the 'bullying story", it does no such thing. It does bring nuance and a more broad, challenging view to the case than others have.

I think people have some basic misconceptions about what bias crimes are and what it means to commit one. You don't have to be a noted, lifelong homophobe (or racist) to commit a bias crime against a gay person (or person of color). You just have to commit the crime specifically because the targeted person is gay (or of color). The idea that previous attitudes exonerate a person automatically is a logical fallacy. Past behavior doesn't exonerate present behavior. It just offers mitigating circumstances. Dharun Ravi does come off as somewhat homophobic, but certainly not violently so. He mostly just comes off as sneaky and untrustworthy.

The article appears to contain two major errors. First it ignores that the very concept of a 'bias crime' is young and unformed, thus it mistakenly tries to give the impression that there is some large body of legal work stating that they can only be applied to overtly violent crimes. This case by itself breaks through that idea, which is part of why it's noteworthy in the first place. This is an example of a non-violent bias crime, according to the prosecution. The author uses the facile argument that one can imagine there being female companions that Clementi could have had which would have caused Ravi to act the same way. What a juvenile argument! I can't believe it made it through editing. It simply doesn't matter. You don't excuse any individual crime because you could "imagine" other committing it in a different way. That is just plain silly.

The second error, and this one I'll have to look at further I guess, is that the article states that Ravi was offered a plea deal with a max 5 year sentence. All other reporting on this I've seen or read says that the plea deal was for all community service, suspended sentence, no time served. If this article is correct, I can see his decision to fight the case in better light. But if not, he was nuts to turn that down. Arrogant and way too self-assured, as those photos of him laughing at his trial suggest.

The 'guilty' finding on the Invasion of Privacy charges is fully and completely warranted. This article is really an example of the mentality that "gosh, this guy drove a BMW in high school, how bad could he be?" is a valid argument against actual technical violation of the law. Do kids do things like this every day and get away with it? Yes! Does that matter in this case? NO!

This guy (Ravi) had already tried, according to the article, to install software on his best friends' computers which would allow him to turn on their cams at his discretion and view them. And it did. He was thwarted by the green light emitted by the cams when they were switched on. This was already a crime! This guy was just out of control on this one point - his need to view others' private activities to feed his own sense of self-superiority. But also to feed his addiction to viewing others' private moments. He was going to get caught for this at some time or other in some capacity, because he kept taking it further and further.

Part of the complaint of the article is that is keeps over and over trying to link the convictions to Clementi's self-inflicted death, but that's not how the legal system works. If you're not in it's grasp, you're not. If you are, you ARE. If they have you on a crime, have you admitting to it, then have you trapped in lying about it further, having your friends lie about it, trying to cover your tracks, it snowballs. That's what happend here. Ravi did all of these things, unfortunately. It is true that the people calling for manslaughter charges on this case were just nuts. Nobody from Ravi's perspective could have known that a death would result from his behavior, but again, this isn't what he was convicted of. He was convicted of targeting Clementi because he was gay - clearly true according to the article. Clearly, inarguably true. He was convicted of invading Clementi's privacy - again, totally, inarguably true. Would any of us know of this case if Clementi hadn't killed himself? Doesn't matter the least little bit, despite the manipulative slant of this article. That just isn't how the legal system works.