New Jersey prosecutors, in a substan tial overreach, this week brought hate-crime charges against a former Rutgers student whose roommate killed himself after his gay encounter was secretly videostreamed.
Dharun Ravi was initially charged with invasion of privacy after his roommate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge.
But because those charges likely would have resulted only in probation, there was enormous political pressure to upgrade the charges to a hate crime; public figures including celebrities and even President Obama spoke out on the case.
Now, the 19-year-old faces a potential 5- to 10-year prison sentence .
We’ve long been leery of the assumptions underlying hate-crime laws: Under the best of circumstances, they assume prosecutors can read defendants’ minds — and they encroach on free-speech rights.
By definition they require prosecutors to make political judgments — and that, as the civil-liberties folks like to say, is a very slippery slope indeed.
Moreover, they’re nearly always selectively enforced.
It seems crystal-clear that this case is being driven by the outrage attending Clementi’s death.
It’s doubtful that such serious charges would have been brought had the case not garnered national attention and intense media coverage. In the wake of Clementi’s suicide, the New Jersey Legislature toughened its anti-bullying statute to make it the toughest in the nation.
What Ravi did — setting up a webcam when he knew Clementi was planning a sexual encounter in their room and then streaming it over a remote computer, where he watched it with a friend — was vile and stupid.
And, as an invasion of privacy, likely criminal, as well.
But was he purposely trying to intimidate or harass his roommate solely because of his sexual orientation — which apparently was known to both his family and others on campus?
Or would he have done the exact same thing had Clementi been trysting with a female — just because that’s what immature teens sometimes do?
We understand the outrage that most people feel at the fact that Tyler Clementi, a promising young student and violinist, took his own life.
But back-engineering a criminal charge because the appropriate allegation doesn’t carry penalties harsh enough to assuage the anger isn’t justice.
It’s revenge, and it’s wrong.