Suicide Or Manslaughter

Here is an interesting question. Should it be a crime to suggest to someone via a text message that he or she should kill him or herself? it's not a theoretical question in Massachusetts, where a teenage girl  has been charged with involuntary manslaughter for urging her friend to kill himself. Conrad Roy III, 18, committed suicide in the parking lot of a Kmart after pondering for some time whether he should end it all. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Police recovered text messages from 18 year of Michelle Carter to Roy, insisting he go through with the suicide.

Oh my. At the least, Michelle was a mean classmate to Conrad, who has had mental problems for some time. I wonder if Michelle has her own mental problems as well. Conrad texted Michelle and said he was scared and didn't want to leave his family, but she continued to encourage him to take kill himself. When he actually started to carry out the act, he got scared again and left his truck, but instead of telling him to stay out of the truck  Michelle told him to ‘get back in'. He did and died form the Carbon monoxide fumes.

But can there be manslaughter (accidentally causing death) when a person commits suicide?  Michelle was arrested and released from jail on $2,500 bail and is banned from using the Internet, except for schoolwork. She is not allowed to text anyone other than her parents.  The district attorney who brought charges against Michelle said in a statement that not only did Carter have first hand knowledge of his suicidal thoughts, “instead of attempting to assist him or notify his family or school officials, Ms. Carter is alleged to have strongly influenced his decision to take his own life, encouraged him to commit suicide and guided him in his engagement of activities which led to his death.”

But is texting a message to someone protected speech, particularly when the texter is a juvenile with less than fully formed reasoning? Should there be rules to prosecute suggestions made by speech (as in the not uncommon angered remark, "I wish you would just kill yourself!"). Does a person have the right to make cruel suggestions to another person who is mentally unstable that lead to death (In Massachusetts suicide is not illegal)?  The lawyer for Michelle believes her manslaughter charges will be dismissed saying “they're trying to claim there is manslaughter, when they freely admit the boy took his own life. You can't have it both ways.”

Whether or not Michelle is convicted she obviously has mental issues herself and will find her life to be lived under the cloud of her cruel texts to Conrad. Let's hope some other monster doesn't suggest that Michelle escape her own private Hell by taking her own life in response.