Dharun Ravi's lawyers will try to reverse his convictions in the Tyler Clementi webcam case today in an appeals court.
NEWARK -- Dharun Ravi's attorneys are making their case before an appeals court Wednesday morning to overturn the Plainsboro man's convictions in the Tyler Clementi webcam case.
The attorneys will be targeting the state's bias statute, arguing that Ravi should never have been charged with bias crimes and all of his convictions should be reversed.
After Ravi's conviction in 2012, the New Jersey Supreme Court struck down a portion of the state's bias crime statute in a separate case. The court also let the other sections of the law stand. That decision, released in March 2015, could have an impact on Ravi's appeal, according to his attorney, Steven Altman.
The state's highest court struck down a portion of the statute that focused on the victim's state of mind. The court said it is the defendant's state of mind and intent that is important, not the victim's.
Altman said in March that decision directly strikes down one of Ravi's convictions and also brings into question decisions made by the trial judge, Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman, now retired. Berman permitted the prosecution to produce evidence of Tyler Clementi's state of mind to the jury.
The appellate judges will also be hearing argument in the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office's appeal of Ravi's sentence in the case. He received 30 days in the county jail instead of state prison time. Ravi could have received up to 10 years in prison.
If his appeal is successful, Ravi's convictions would be cleared from his record, but he has already served his sentence, so it would have no effect on his incarceration.
Ravi was also convicted of hindering his own apprehension and tampering with witnesses.
The appellate arguments come nearly four years after Ravi's conviction for several counts of bias intimidation and other charges following a highly publicized trial in New Brunswick. The high profile case put a national spotlight on cyber bullying.
http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2015/03/could_dharun_ravi_win_new_trial_in_tyler_clementi.html
Clementi, was Ravi's dorm mate at Rutgers University when the two were freshmen, jumped off the George Washington Bridge several days after the incidents in September 2010 in which Ravi set up a remote webcam that spied on Clementi while he was having an intimate encounter with another man.
However, Ravi was not charged in Clementi's death and the defense maintained the webcam incidents had nothing to do with Clementi's decision to commit suicide.
The judges are not expected to issue their decision in the case for four or five months.
Sue Epstein may be reached at sepstein@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @susan_epstein. Find NJ.com on Facebook.