NJ Jury Pool Shrinks in Tyler Clementi Rutgers Bullying Case

The pool of prospective jurors has shrunk from 274 to just fewer than 100 for the trial of a former Rutgers student accused of using a webcam to spy on his roommate's intimate encounter with another man.

The judge and lawyers in the case agreed to eliminate 82 members from the pool Tuesday because of the views they expressed on questionnaires. Berman said most of the jurors are aware of the case against 19-year-old old Dharun Ravi.

Twelve people and at least two alternates will ultimately sit on the jury.

The case sparked a national conversation about bullying on young gays after Tyler Clementi committed suicide in 2010 by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.

Jurors will be asked to come to court starting Wednesday for deeper questioning.

A pool of 274 potential jurors came to the Middlesex County Superior Courthouse in New Brunswick, N.J., on Friday to fill out questionnaires. So far, attorneys for both the prosecution and defense agreed to dismiss about 188 of them, based on answers to the 17-page questionnaire.

The potential 86 jurors will be questioned in court by the attorneys on Wednesday. Judge Glenn Berman told the attorneys he will decide Wednesday whether to impanel 14 jurors, which would give him two alternates, or 16, as requested by the prosecution.

The trial is expected to last three to four weeks. Prosecutor Julia McClure said she has 23 witnesses to call and that several Rutgers students would be among the first to be called. If the jury selection process goes quickly, opening statements could begin Wednesday.

Defense attorney Steve Altman expressed concern to the judge over his decision to allow the  the media to videotape and photograph inside the courtroom.

“I don’t want this proceeding to be any different because of the media,” he said. TruTV, formerly called Court TV, is broadcasting the trial.

Clementi was 18 years old at the time of his death. He told his parents he was gay just days before leaving for his first year at Rutgers, and lived in a small dorm room in New Brunswick, N.J., with Ravi for three weeks before he committed suicide.

It is alleged that he asked Ravi for use of the room privately on the two nights that the webcam spying is believed to have occurred. 

The young man who came to the dorm on those two nights and was seen on the webcam is expected to testify in the trial and is listed in the indictment as a victim. His name has been kept out of the media and it will not be mentioned in court.

Ravi’s co-defendent, Molly Wei, has pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was sentenced to probation, community service and sensitivity training. If Ravi were to plead guilty, he could be deported because he was born in India.

Wei has been subpoenaed to testify, as is her lawyer, who presumably will be asked about her plea agreement.

Ravi is also charged with witness tampering and hindering an investigation, stemming from alleged texts that he sent to Wei and changes to his tweet account. The hindering charge was upgraded from third degree to second degree today because the judge had noticed a legal error in the indictment. But the judge told the attorneys that he was unlikely to increase the sentence for Ravi if he was convicted of the charge.

“Would it be fair to be punished for a mistake by the state that I caught?” Berman asked.