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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Free speech and its manslaughter attempts: a First Amendment thread.
 
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Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004

quote:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/suicide-texting-trial-michelle-carter-conrad-roy.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

TAUNTON, Mass. — A young woman who sent a barrage of text messages to another teenager urging him to kill himself was found guilty Friday of involuntary manslaughter in a case that many legal experts had expected to result in an acquittal.

The verdict, handed down by a judge in a nonjury trial, was a rare legal finding that, essentially, a person’s words alone can directly cause someone else’s suicide.


This terrible girl convinced her boyfriend to get back in his poison truck with horrible abuse and didn't get away with it. Some people are unhappy about this on principle.

quote:

Being A Bitch Is Now A Criminal Offense, Apparently
If “free will” is to mean anything, you cannot “suicide” a person to death. You can murder someone, you can accidentally murder someone, you can pay someone to murder someone for you, you can set up a criminal organization under which murders occur on your behalf, you can even set up conditions so inherently unsafe that you are criminally responsible for anybody who happens to die. But you can’t kill a person who kills themselves. The self-killing breaks the causal chain between your actions, however reprehensible, and the death.

Until today.

But this was pretty loving awful. As this article I read admits.

quote:

Carter’s texts to her then-boyfriend were undoubtedly mean. Abusive even. She encouraged him to kill himself, believing, she claims, that he really wanted to do it and that he would be happier in heaven if he did. She also called him on his cell phone, encouraging him to go through with it. Allegedly, at one point Roy got out of his car and Carter told him to get back in.

I found the judges argument reasonable.

New York Times posted:

“She instructed Mr. Roy to get back into the truck, well knowing his ambiguities, his fears, his concerns,” Judge Moniz said. “This court finds that instructing Mr. Roy to get back in the truck constituted wanton and reckless conduct, by Ms. Carter creating a situation where there is a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm will result to Mr. Roy.”

As he finished, Judge Moniz asked Ms. Carter, who was sobbing, to stand. He then concluded: “This court, having reviewed the evidence, finds you guilty on the indictment with involuntary manslaughter.”

I would go so far as to say the victim's fragile state of mind plus the fact that he was suffering from poisoning at the time makes it analogous to someone convincing their senile grandmother to take a walk on the freeway. But it's... "just words".

Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Jun 16, 2017

* # ¿ Jun 16, 2017 23:55
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# ¿ May 11, 2024 12:14
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Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004

Nckdictator posted:

Hey OP

Hey buddies, I didn't reference the first amendment in the thread title because I intended to tell people what they can and cannot say in the thread. ;)

roomforthetuna posted:

I think you're black-and-whiting it too much here. That they were dating is material because it's evidence that she was in a position to be a strong influence on his decisions. This doesn't imply that there couldn't be different evidence for that if they weren't dating, and it's not very usefully material in this particular case because there's much more tangible evidence that overwhelms its relevance, but that doesn't mean it's not relevant at all.

I do wonder if the judge would reach the same conclusion if she had been a total stranger he accidentally dialed. I would be inclined to think he would, because his reasoning seems to suggest that she acquired some kind of limited affirmative duty under the circumstances, and I don't think the existence of that duty hinges on her being his girlfriend, it just makes her actions that much grosser.

* # ¿ Jun 21, 2017 20:50
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Free speech and its manslaughter attempts: a First Amendment thread.