Is She Guilty?

If you tell someone to kill him or herself, and do it a number of times, and if that person does take his or her own life, is it a criminal act for which the person can be prosecuted? That issue rose  this summer and now been adjudicated.  A woman who sent her boyfriend a barrage of text messages urging him to kill himself when they were both teenagers was just convicted of involuntary manslaughter in a trial that  decided that words can kill. An involuntary manslaughter charge can be brought in Massachusetts, the venue for this case, when someone causes the death of another person when engaging in reckless or wanton conduct that creates a high degree of likelihood of substantial harm.

With social media and cell phone addicted messaging everywhere, I suspect the courts may see more of this kind of case. You better not tell someone to "jump in the lake", for fear they may drown and that you will be cited as the cause of death. In this case of the manslaughter conviction, Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz found that Michelle Carter caused the death of Conrad Roy III, who intentionally filled his truck with carbon monoxide in a store parking lot in July 2014.

Never mind whether her actions caused his death.  It was stated in the transcripts of the trial that the victim was well on the way to killing himself when he began texting her. The judge said (Michelle asked for and received a trial by judge, not jury) Michelle should be held liable for his death. Is the judge assuming that he would not have killed himself had she not sent the texts? Should judgments be based on hypotheticals?

It's an interesting new way to be held responsible for the death of another without doing more than suggesting it isn't a bad idea to consider suicide. On the other hand, Michelle was at least cruel and negligent toward her former by friend. After 18  year old Conrad climbed out of the truck as it was filling with toxic gas and told Carter he was scared. "Get back in," Carter told Conrad, according to a friend who testified Carter described the conversation in a text message to her about a month after he died. "This court finds that instructing Mr. Roy to 'get back in' the truck constitutes wanton and reckless conduct by Ms. Carter," the judge said. He said Carter had a duty to call someone for help when she knew Conrad was attempting suicide. Yet she did not call the police or Conrad's family, he noted.

Michelle could could face up to 20 years in prison. The case does show how teenage depression and suicide through text messages and Face book communications can and dos lead to tragedy. I wonder if the parents of deceased Conrad will blame social media and even Michelle's parents by filing a civil lawsuit against them for allowing the platform that led to the crazy texting between Conrad and Michelle. Michelle was 17 when she sent Conrad dozens of messages urging him to take his own life. "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. Sounds like immature and dangerous provocation to me, but teenagers do that to each other every day.

Michelle's lawyer argued Conrad had a history of depression and suicide attempts and was determined to end his own life. He said Michelle initially tried to talk Conrad out of it and urged him to get professional help, but eventually went along with his plan. In effect, he intimated that somehow Conrad convinced Michelle that his suicide was the right approach to the end of a failed love affair. The judge disagreed, saying he did not take into account in his verdict Conrad's previous attempts at suicide.

The American Civil Liberties Union denounced the conviction, saying it "exceeds the limits of our criminal laws and violates free speech protections guaranteed by the Massachusetts and U.S. Constitutions. It is not a reason to stretch the boundaries of our criminal laws or abandon the protections of our constitution." Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist testifying in support of Michelle not being held responsible, said Conrad was a "very troubled youngster" who suffered from depression. At the time of Conrad's death, Carter was taking Celexa, an antidepressant Breggin said targets the brain's frontal lobe, which controls empathy and decision-making.

Another sad part of the affair beyond the tragic loss of life is that the relationship between Michelle and Conrad was built almost entirely on texting messages in a phone, a typical teen romance today. "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," was what Michelle wrote to Conrad the day of his suicide.

Do you think Michelle should be held liable in full or in part for Conrad's death?