DRC Congratulates its Clients Steven Altman and Philip Nettl of Benedict and Altman on Monumental Appellate Victory

On March 16, 2012, a jury found Dharun Ravi guilty of various charges including multiple counts of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence in a case that garnered international media attention.

 

The convictions on four counts were vacated and dismissed with prejudice as a matter of law because those four counts were directly predicated on N.J.S.A. 2C:16-1(a)(3), a now constitutionally defunct law. Specifically, the Supreme Court of New Jersey held in State v. Pomianek, 221 N.J. 66, 70 (2015), that N.J.S.A. 2C:16-1(a)(3) violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it focused "on the victim's perception and not the defendant's intent." This allowed a jury "to convict a defendant even when bias did not motivate the commission of the offense." Pomianek, 221 N.J. at 69.

 

The Court concluded that the type of evidence that the State was permitted to present to prove the charges in those four counts, namely evidence relating to the victim's state of mind, tainted the jury's verdict on the remaining charges, depriving Mr. Ravi of his constitutional right to a fair trial. During jury selection, DRC's Josh Dubin advanced similar arguments regarding prospective jurors that had been exposed to media accounts about the victim's state of mind. The Court found it "unreasonable to expect a rational juror to remain unaffected by this evidence," which "permeated the entire case against defendant, rendering any attempt to salvage the convictions under the remaining charges futile."

 

DRC assisted Benedict and Altman with jury selection, trial strategy and demonstrative aids.