I know there have been threads on this case in the past, but I don’t see any current one.
Michelle Carter, who via text message told her boyfriend (Conrad Roy) who had gotten out of the truck in which he was trying to asphyxiate himself to commit suicide, to get back in there and do it, has been convicted in a bench trial of involuntary manslaughter.
The ACLU has condemned the verdict on freedom of speech grounds. The Massachusetts Bar has commended the judge.
I tend to agree with the bar as well, while I understand where the ACLU is coming from, free speech has its limits and always has, they are looking at this from the slippery slope argument, if you allow this, where does it stop. However, like bullying and harassment, free speech ends when someone else is involved, if there is demonstratable harm involved, where the consequences of that speech are directly tied to something. The idiot with a bullhorn in a crowd who gets a crowd riled up at “liberals” or “conservatives” or “whites” or “asians”, and the crowd goes on a rampage against people they perceive to be those things, will be charged with incitement to riot. Somone with a guy on a building ledge who tells him to jump and the guy does should be charged, from their behavior it is clear they are trying to get the person to kill themself and that should not be protected.
There has to be a strong standard here, though, it has to be where a reasonable person can see the link between speech and harm. The people who seem to get offended by everything or find anything ‘harassing’ they don’t like, cannot be the standard, it has to be a tough thing to prove (despite what is often claimed, there is a high standard when judging something a hate crime, it isn’t automatic as some think, there has to be a direct tie between the incident involved and the pattern of speech/behavior before it).
If you read those texts she sent to Conrad Roy it is hard to comprehend someone could actually write them. It would set a very bad precedent had the Judge come to any other conclusion. She knew the desperate state of mind the boy was in and yet continued to encourage and even pressure him to kill himself. Never called for help or contacted his family. Inconceivable to me.
I thought the judge’s reasoning was interesting. He stated that the words “get back in” were what persuaded him to convict. Remember that his instinct to live prevailed at first and he got out of the truck in the parking lot. Carter then ordered him back in.
While the judge acknowledged Conrad Roy took “significant actions of his own to kill himself” he went on to say:
I agree with the judge. She has never shown any remorse for her actions. Her attitude throughout the trial came across as the whole legal process was a waste of her time.
I am so happy she was convicted. This was not some off the cuff remark, it was a prolonged and persistent pressure on him him to kill himself.
I keep imagining what it must be like for his parents - not only did she push him into killing himself but she encouraged him to think his parents would be OK with him doing it. That would be devastating to me - to think my child died thinking I wanted him to.
It’s tough to read the texts she sent and feel like she didn’t significantly contribute to the suicide. Given his state of mind, it’s analogous to ordering (not just suggesting or encouraging) a little kid to run out into the middle of heavy traffic. I understand the free speech angle and surely there’s a big fat grey line, but her texts went waaaay over line and into the next time zone.
Why do you feel that this is a stretch of the law? I thought that since she knew what he was intending, and interactied with him up until the time of death, and did nothing to help, and in fact goaded him , that she would be guilty at some level. Asking, not arguing.
I’m no expert in the local criminal law, but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a homicide where no one took any physical action to start the chain of events that caused the death. I expect that scholars will have a lot to say about this one.
I think this is one where the girl’s behavior is clearly immoral but should not be illegal. She had no authority to “command” him to get back in the car. It wasn’t the military for example.
It takes two to tango. There are so many sick relationships with a controlling person and a controlled person, both perfectly happy with the misery of the situation. We use the term “stably unstable” meaning that even when confronted with the misery and sickness of the pathological relationship dynamics, each person chooses to continue. Imagine. It might be sick but it is not criminal. Convicting someone of a crime and therefore culpable for “making me do it” is a terrible precedent.
It is obviously a horrible outcome and she should suffer but I don’t think she committed a crime like manslaughter. An odd situation in which I agree with the ACLU.
I read in one of the press reports that the judge acknowledged that the Commonwealth had not proved her conduct had actually** caused** the death of Conrad Roy. But the standard for an involuntary manslaughter conviction is only “wanton and reckless conduct.”
The judge believed that the fact Carter sat there with her phone in her hand “listening to Conrad Roy draw his last fitful breaths, instead of using the phone to summon help” along with ordering him back into the truck constituted wanton and reckless conduct.