Trial for girl who texted boyfriend urging suicide (1 Viewer)

Optimus Prime

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This is my first hearing about this story. So sad.

What is wrong with people?!

I'm glad it's going to trial
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BOSTON (AP) — A teenager who sent her boyfriend dozens of text messages encouraging him to take his own life and telling him to "get back in" a truck filled with carbon monoxide fumes must stand trial for involuntary manslaughter, the state's highest court ruled Friday.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled Friday that a grand jury had probable cause to indict Michelle Carter, then 17, in the 2014 death of Carter Roy III, 18.

Carter's lawyer had argued that her texts were free speech protected by the First Amendment and didn't cause Roy to kill himself.

But the court, in a strongly worded decision, said the grand jury heard evidence suggesting that Carter engaged in a "systematic campaign of coercion" that targeted Roy's insecurities and that her instruction to "get back in" his truck in the final moments of his life was a "direct, causal link" to his death...........

The case drew national attention after transcripts of text messages Carter sent to Roy were released publicly, showing her urging him to follow through on his plan to kill himself and chastising him when he expressed doubts.

"I thought you wanted to do this. The time is right and you're ready, you just need to do it!" Carter wrote in one message.

"You can't think about it. You just have to do it. You said you were gonna do it. Like I don't get why you aren't," she wrote in another message...........

Court OKs trial for girl who texted boyfriend urging suicide
 
it makes her a crappy human and a piece of crap, but I don't think she will be convicted. a conviction in this case, imo, opens up the door for other issues.
I tell someone to go jump off a bridge, they do it, now I'm going to jail. unlikely, but it could become a possibility.
 
it makes her a crappy human and a piece of crap, but I don't think she will be convicted. a conviction in this case, imo, opens up the door for other issues.
I tell someone to go jump off a bridge, they do it, now I'm going to jail. unlikely, but it could become a possibility.

I understand your point. But I believe the difference is that she told him to get back in. She didn't just say "go kill yourself". Although that's a stupid comment, it's just idle words. Once he made the decision, but had second thoughts, she actively coerced him to finishing it.
 
it makes her a crappy human and a piece of crap, but I don't think she will be convicted. a conviction in this case, imo, opens up the door for other issues.
I tell someone to go jump off a bridge, they do it, now I'm going to jail. unlikely, but it could become a possibility.

Yeah not sure I agree with you on this. There's a difference between telling someone to go jump off a bridge...and a series of messages encouraging your significant other who you know is battling issues of suicide, to go finish the job and kill themselves. If it was just one message that said "go kill yourself" then I could see the argument against the trial. But she knew what was going on and was actively encouraging someone that she had influence over, to kill themselves. The only argument I really see being in her favor is that she was 17 and maybe still didn't quite understand that there's a difference between teenage drama and actual mental health issues.
 
different but similar story:

Tysen Benz was in his room when he read text messages saying someone he knew had committed suicide.

Shortly after,*the 11-year-old boy from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula hanged himself.
Now, a 13-year-old girl is facing criminal charges in connection to his death. Marquette County Prosecuting Attorney Matt Wiese said the girl posed as someone else when she was texting with Tysen and faked her own death.

And the boy, for reasons still unclear, believed it and killed himself within two hours of receiving the messages, Wiese said.
Wiese said he could not confirm the relationship between Tysen and the girl, but media reports say she was his girlfriend.

“The impact that it had on the boy*— there’s a logical connection,” Wiese told The Washington Post. “He did this within hours of the conversation happening via text.”
The girl, whose name was not released, has been charged with malicious use of telecommunication service, punishable by up to six months in juvenile detention; and using a computer to commit a crime, which carries up to a year in punishment. Both are misdemeanor charges......................

An 11-year-old boy killed himself after his girlfriend faked her death. She
 
it makes her a crappy human and a piece of crap, but I don't think she will be convicted. a conviction in this case, imo, opens up the door for other issues.
I tell someone to go jump off a bridge, they do it, now I'm going to jail. unlikely, but it could become a possibility.

I agree with this assessment. It sucks that someone would act that way, but I don't think it should be criminal. I would lean more towards it being a criminal act if it was the boy's parents or an authority figure who did this, but not this 17yo girl.
 
I agree with this assessment. It sucks that someone would act that way, but I don't think it should be criminal. I would lean more towards it being a criminal act if it was the boy's parents or an authority figure who did this, but not this 17yo girl.

But that makes her less criminally responsible than some convenience store clerk who might have sold the kid beer and the kids gets in a drunk driving fatal crash
If they can show that she knew the likely outcome and coerced him, she should be held responsible
 
It sounds like she's guilty as hell to me. She basically did everything but lock him in the car with carbon monoxide. At 17, she clearly knew what she was doing and got some sick joy out of it. This isn't free speech. I hope she gets thrown in jail.

It's really not that hard to differentiate between somebody saying a throw away line like "go burn in a fire" and what this girl did. I don't know why anybody thinks it is difficult. Speech/Actions like these should never be legal. She prayed on somebody who was suicidal, mentally warping his mind further until the very end. She was an active participant in his death. Without her he likely wouldn't have killed himself. She should be held accountable, her age has little to do with this. And besides at 17 she can be tried as an adult, and should be.
 
a conviction in this case, imo, opens up the door for other issues. I tell someone to go jump off a bridge, they do it, now I'm going to jail. unlikely, but it could become a possibility.

It's really not that hard to differentiate between somebody saying a throw away line like "go burn in a fire" and what this girl did.
Right. There's a huge difference between using a common figurative expression with no reason to think it would be taken literally, and talking someone who is literally in the process of killing himself into finishing the job.

To charge someone with involuntary manslaughter, you have to be able to show that they knew (or should have known) that what they were doing threatened someone's life. Just using a common expression like, "oh, go jump off a bridge," is not in itself going to show that, and if there was a conviction in this case, that wouldn't change. There's no slippery slope there.
 
But that makes her less criminally responsible than some convenience store clerk who might have sold the kid beer and the kids gets in a drunk driving fatal crash
If they can show that she knew the likely outcome and coerced him, she should be held responsible

One difference there is that if this guy did not kill himself could/would the girl be charged with anything?
In the store case - the clerk clearly broke a law regardless of what happened after teh purchase.
 
How much different is what she did than what someone like Charles Manson did?

Without knowing the details it seems that there are some big differences.

Manson didn't just tell people to murder. He was part of an actual enterprise, a conspiracy, to murder. There was a shared motivation - talked about by members of the conspiracy, there was planning, there were weapons that Manson instructed to use, elements of the crime Manson instructed to do that furthered the motivation . . .
 
If he is too stupid to block her, then the world got smarter. I also believe she is a piece of crap but not a criminal.
 

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