UPDATED AT 3:43 PM
If readers had a say about Dharun Ravi's sentence, the convicted webcam spymaster would be headed for state prison, rather than probation.
So far I've gotten about 110 emails, voicemails and online responses to my column about the three years of probation, 30 days in county jail, 300 hours of community service and $11,000 fine Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman imposed Monday on Ravi.
The prosecution, which in March succeeded in convincing a jury to convict the former Rutgers freshman on bias intimidation, invasion of privacy and witness/evidence tampering charges, will appeal.
Setting aside those online commentators whose posts exist solely for their own or each other's entertainment, about two-thirds of the reaction has come from readers who believe the sentence was an injustice to Tyler Clementi, the gay roomate whose intimacies with another man Ravi spied upon, then Tweeted about, prior to Clementi's suicide.
Among the comments that were generally supportive of the sentence, a half dozen suggested that the prosecution had bowed to a purportedly all-powerful gay community. Close to 20 people asserted that Clementi's relationship with his mother had more to do with his suicide than the webcamming. Readers didn't fault Ravi's mother for her son's actions, however.