New Jersey LGBT Law

HADDONFIELD, NJ—The case of a Rutgers University student who committed suicide after a roommate allegedly used a webcam to spy on his tryst with another man could pose the first legal test of a state privacy law passed in 2003.

Lawyers for the roommate and another student, accused of watching 18-year-old Tyler Clementi making out with a dude in his dorm room on the Piscataway campus, insist their clients were the only two people who saw a tame encounter and did not record it.

Prosecutors said, though, that they tried to transmit a sexual encounter on the Internet but haven't said how widely available they believe the video was.

The case became a national symbol soon after the news broke that Clementi, a freshman just a few weeks into classes at Rutgers, committed suicide by jumping into the Hudson River from the George Washington Bridge.

In the days before his death, authorities said, Dharun Ravi and another student, Molly Wei, watched his encounter with an unidentified man in the room Clementi shared with Ravi.

The story came on the heels of a spate of gay teenagers nationwide killing themselves after being bullied – and it quickly took on that mantle.

Clementi's death galvanized efforts to fight suicide and bullying of gay teens. It helped inspire Wear Purple Day last month, in which advocates encouraged people to wear the color to protest bullying. Talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Barack Obama joined luminaries in recording videos decrying bullying and suicide.

Facebook groups popped up calling for expulsion or long prison sentences for Ravi and Wei. Some groups have suggested hate-crime charges, and Middlesex County prosecutors say they're evaluating whether the state's hate-crime law might apply.

To convict someone of a hate crime, a jury must find that someone committed a crime out of a belief that the victim was a member of a protected group, such as a racial or sexual minority. Friends of the suspects have said they held no animosity toward gays.

Their lawyers announced last week that they were withdrawing from Rutgers out of fear for their safety, and followed a few days later with comments that appear to be aimed at getting their clients the lightest penalty possible – but not denying their involvement.

When the forensic evidence from all the seized computers is revealed, the truth will come out, Steve Altman, Ravi's attorney, told the Newark Star-Ledger for Sunday's editions. Nothing was transmitted beyond one computer, and what was seen was only viewed for a matter of seconds.

Authorities say Ravi failed in an attempt to spy on his roomate.

In a gay-themed chatroom, a poster who appears to have been Clementi said he unplugged Ravi's computer and searched for hidden cameras before a liaison that night.

The applicable state invasion-of-privacy law, adopted in 2003 as a sex offense, appears to be seldom used. There have been no legal cases in which judges have further interpreted it.

The law differentiates between a third-degree crime, which could carry a five-year prison term, and a fourth-degree crime, punishable by no more than 18 months in prison for first-time offenders. Prosecutors have not specified which degree Ravi and Wei are charged with.

The less serious fourth-degree crime could be committed if someone who is unauthorized to do so merely observes a sexual act – or in a situation where a reasonable person would know that another may expose intimate parts or may engage in sexual penetration or sexual contact.

To prove the third-degree crime, though, would be harder. To be convicted someone would have to see nudity or sexual contact – and would have to record it. If the defense lawyers are correct that could be hard for prosecutors to prove.