What
Are the Chances Webcam Suicide Defendant Will Be Deported?
by
Steve Weinstein
EDGE
Editor-In-Chief
Friday
Mar 16, 2012
Everyone
has been following the dramatic case of Dharun Ravi. The former
student at Rutgers University in New Jersey set up a webcam and
invited others to watch his gay roommate entertain another man in
their dorm room.
Now, a
jury is deciding
Ravi’s fate. Rather than accept a plea bargain by pleading guilty,
Ravi rolled the dice by going to trial. By doing so, he also exposed
himself to possible deportation.
Ravi and his parents are
immigrants from India who reside here as permanent residents. He
faces 15 charges, some of them felonies. By law, if convicted of
certain felonies, he can be permanently barred from the United
States.
But what are the chances
of sentence actually being carried out? EDGE spoke to one of the most
prominent attorneys who specialize in such cases about this very
public trial.
Now in private practice
in New York, Michael Wildes is a former federal prosecutor and mayor
of Englewood, N.J. He has appeared on CNN and other newscasts as an
expert on deportation cases. Wildes represented the government in
several high-profile immigration cases, including one prohibiting
former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi from residing in New Jersey
during a United Nations summit.
According to Wildes, if a
person is charged with a felony conviction of more than a year in
jail -- or if under a year if the crime is one of "moral
turpitude" under the law -- the convicted defendant can, indeed,
be deported. Not only that, but he very likely would be.
“Very likely if
convicted, he would be placed into removal proceedings," Wildes
said. The only remedy would be if Ravi could prove that he would be
subject to torture in an in Indian jail; highly unlikely to stick,
according to Wildes. Additionally, he would be serving his time in a
U.S. jail before deportation; it’s highly unlikely that, upon
arrival in India, he would be seized by authorities there and put to
torture.
There is one other avenue
of possible escape: claiming that his removal would prove an
insurmountable hardship to his family; also nearly impossible in this
case, Wildes noted. Nor would his age (he’s under 21) or having
been a college student have any bearing. Having reached the "age
of majority," that is, over 18, he is considered a full adult
under the law.
The operative term for
deportation is "aggravated felon." Would that apply to
Ravi? Yes, Wildes believes, if he is convicted of the crimes with
which he is accused. "This is a cutting-edge case," the
lawyer added. "He really feels innocent, that he committed no
crime. He felt it might have been in poor taste, but not criminal in
nature." (Wildes added that neither he nor anyone else knows
what kind of deal the prosecution offered Ravi’s lawyers in return
for a plea deal.)
The governor, of course,
can commute the conviction. But, given the gravity of what happened
to Tyler Clementi, the shy, aspiring violinist who so dramatically
ended his life by jumping off the massive George Washington Bridge
into Manhattan, and the attendant publicity, it is unlikely in the
extreme that Chris Christie, a Republican with half an eye on higher
office, would intervene on his behalf.
The case has fascinated
the legal world, because of the intersection of so many circumstances
that are only making their way into the legal world: bias via
Internet spying; intimidation and humiliation via webcam; bullying
through webcam.
If convicted, Ravi will
have to surrender his passport and his family will have to post a
hefty bond. Any conviction, of course, will probably be suspended
pending the inevitable repeal. Ravi comes from a wealthy family that
has made it clear that it intends to stand by him.
Even so, Wildes
concluded, "It all goes to show that if he had a deal and didn’t
do it, he either thought he had a very good immigration lawyer or he
has a very bad criminal lawyer."
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