Rutgers Case

Introduction

Rutgers case revolves around a student who videotaped his gay dorm mate using webcam when having sex with another man. He later posted the videos on twitter and facebook websites that emotionally tortured the teenage. The victim committed a suicide later, and the defendant is charged with hate crime.

1.

The Rutgers case can be considered as unfortunate outcome since the defendant did not commit murder. Instead, the act caused the victim to commit suicide due to embarrassment. The media bullying of the teenage was the principal crime that made the defendant be charged in a court of law. The hate crime emotionally intimidated the victim to his action of death. The defendant did not have the intention of making his dorm mate commit suicide. What is portrayed most is the curiosity to know about the gay and somehow the dislikes of his dorm mate.

The criminal charges against the two students could well be categorized as negligent homicide. This crime charge is brought against victims who cause others to die through criminal negligence. This is the most suitable way of categorizing this bullying act to the dorm mate who committed suicide. Although taken as a scapegoat towards the two students, the case had to be criminalized since there was the incidence of death.

Ravi was guilty of invasion of privacy according to the case laws of the same manner. Recording the videotape without the victim awareness was a serious crime that emotionally affected Clementi. This however can be proved through his complaint to the officials.

The charge of bias intimidation shows that the crime was a negligent homicide. There was a law enacted in New Jersey that rules out the act of secretly recording intimate act without the permission of the victim were a crime. Following this law that was passed and enacted makes this a crime since it caused civil damages to the plaintiff.

In conclusion, Ravi negligently made Clementi commit suicide due to embarrassments. This proves that the defendant did not constitute murder or manslaughter and thus the case cannot be termed as a murder crime.

 

2. Felony murder

The Rutgers case could not be termed as a felony murder since the defendant did not cause any death. Through his action of bullying the dorm mate, the suicide was committed. This shows negligence instead of murder. The intentions of Ravi were to spy his dorm mate which affected him emotionally to the extent of committing suicide.

Felony can be characterized by having some force or threat element against a person. This was not proved in the Rutgers case. Additionally, the defendant did not show of having a deadly weapon. This disqualifies the case of being a felony since it does not have any trait of misdemeanor. This was according to the criminal law Act 1967.

However, the defendant caused the death of the victim, but this cannot be considered as a felony but negligence crime. The ruling of this case cannot therefore, be based on the felony crimes. The classification of the crime cannot therefore, be based on the felony punishment.

  

3.

Rutgers case can be considered as a hate crime. Considering the possibility that Ravi was a friend with Clementi, he could not end up spying on him. This media bullying act led to emotional torture to Clementi who terminated his life after learning that his love affair was in media. This act of media bullying clearly portray the hatred Ravi had against his dorm mate.

Therefore, the legal requirement of New Jersey should be applied accordingly to the victim. Privacy charges should be brought forth against the defendant for hate crime. The chats on twitter and facebook clearly portray the cyber bullying act of Ravi. The comments by interested parties emotionally tortured the teenage student leading to committing suicide.

According to the ruling of reviewed cases though few, the appropriate sentence to defendant would be carrying appropriate years imprisonment and get some classes to understand different lifestyle and incorporate them. The defendant should also get counseling.

  

4.

Technological crime expected in the next ten years

a). Web Piracy

Web piracy is not all that common when registered in the current era. However in the next ten years copyright infringement will be at a high notch following the technology pace on piracy. Despite having the intellectual property rights, technology is growing tremendously first, and the young generation has the passion to discover more. This leads to the infringement of top private sites some owned by the government. Loss of confidential information and privacy causes a serious loss to the victims affected.

b). Fraud and identity theft

Within the next decade, dishonest misrepresentation of fact will highly be experienced. The reason behind this anticipation is the first pace of technological growth. The identity theft in the near future will cause serious financial loss through fraud in the banks. Disguise of someone else to transact using the internet will hurt many people leading to criminal charges.

Identity theft can be used to cause threat and blamed on another person who did not cause the crime.  Text or written speech leading to intimidation or intent harm is criminalized. In this case, it will be a challenge to trace the real victim for the crime. This crime can threaten the reputation of an individual which can lead to physical and mental harm. This hate crime should be treated as a high profile and the punishment should be taken according to the weight of the harm caused.

References

By Pam Spaulding, Special to CNN (October 1, 2010)."Why did Tyler Clementi die? - CNN.com". Edition.cnn.com. Retrieved 2010-10-01.

Danner, J. P. (2010). Offense Seriousness Scaling. An Alternative to Scenario Methods, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, , 309–322.

McQuade, S. (2009). The Encyclopedia of Cybercrime. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Walden, I. (2010). Computer Crimes and Digital Investigations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Warren G. Kruse, J. G. (2009). Computer forensics: incident response essentials. . New York: Oxford.