Girl Convicted for Urging Boyfriend's Suicide - Lawyers Ask SCOTUS to Review Case

[MJJersey]

Originally Posted by Scooby Snacks

I totally disagree with the conviction. Like the old adage, "If someone told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?" An adult makes all their own decisions up to and including ending their life prematurely. The boyfriend could have said, "This is wrong. I'm not going to listen to you." He could have thrown his phone in the river. He could have texted someone else. He could have blocked her number. He could have driven that vehicle to his parents' home or to the hospital.

Blaming her is misplaced. No one held a gun to his head and forced him to read, respond, and follow her text messages. Convicting her sets a bad legal precedent. Sure what she did was evil. But the only person responsible for a suicide is that individual. That's what suicide is.

If person A conspires with person B to kill person C then person A is still responsible. The only difference here is that person B and C are one in the same.

[prospectheightsresident]

Yeah I'm a strong defender of the first amendment but I don't think there is a problem with the conviction here. This was a person of influence who engaged in disgusting behavior that led someone to take his life. General calls of internet trolls on the internet for people to taken their own lives would, in most cases, be protected. But this was something far different.

[atltechdude]

Involuntary manslaughter seems like a fair charge for encouraging a fragile troubled young man who clearly needed help to kill himself. What a disgusting callous act.

I hope the ***** thinks about how she treats others when she's in the pokey.

It's clearly not deserving of an extremely long sentence, but she only got 15 months which seems more than fair. This is something that should be punished but that she should be able to come back from and move on to a better life if she makes an effort.

[mascoma]

She was calling him while he was in the truck killing himself. And she didn't call 911. Judge Moniz found that Roy had broken the “chain of self-causation” towards his suicide when he exited the truck and that it was Carter’s wanton and reckless encouragement to then return to the truck that caused his death.

Judge Moniz explained that prosecutors proved beyond a reasonable doubt Carter’s words of encouragement in the weeks leading up to the suicide were wanton or reckless but failed to prove that this conduct caused Roy’s death. In his view, Roy’s research, preparation, and expressed desire to commit suicide made it clear that Carter’s support at that time did not cause his death. However, Judge Moniz observed, when Roy exited the truck and abandoned his suicide attempt, he “br[oke] that chain of self-causation.” Given Carter’s knowledge of Roy’s fears and the danger posed by the toxic environment within the truck, Judge Moniz found Carter’s instruction to get back into the truck at Roy’s crucial moment of equivocation to be wanton and reckless conduct.Carter’s instruction created “a life-threatening risk” to Roy by “put[ting] him into that toxic environment “and thus imposed on Carter “a duty to take reasonable steps to alleviate [that] risk. “Ultimately, Carter’s “actions and also her failure to act, where she had a self-created duty,” constituted wanton and reckless conduct that “caused the death of Mr. Roy.”

https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-cont...925_Online.pdf

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by Perryview22

https://nypost.com/2019/07/08/michel...-by-text-case/

I hope that the Court does agrees to review this case. I think that this young woman, regardless of the tragic suicide of her boyfriend, was wrongly convicted.

Firstly, I think she has some psychiatric or psychological problems herself. Perhaps she was trying to use reverse psychology on him. Regardless of why she did it...even if it was in malice, this is just another example of why the founders of this country thought that governing and judging should be reserved to those gifted with superior intellect. I don't agree that we should be run by an elite higher order, but I sure do understand the idea of it. This is a case of rough-cut moralist prosecutors and judges sculpting the law to the shape of their common-minded reasonings. People of this mentality cannot understand some of the higher principles that undergird some of our laws.

Where does the reasoning behind her conviction take us? You can extrapolate the most bizarre and ridiculous cases for criminal culpability using the reasoning of the judge that convicted her. Every dammed one of us could be convicted of a crime under the reasoning used to convict this girl.


PREEMPTION: To the common-minded who cannot distinguish between a reasoned argument based on principle vs sticking up for someone the pitchfork mob would call pure-evil... I am not justifying the act of prodding someone to commit suicide. Got it!!!

It's not reverse psychology when the young man decided to stop and the girl urged him on. She was very persistent too.

They were both very troubled, but the girl commanded the situation. At any time she could have stopped the boy's suicide, but she did not. She pushed him into it as hard as she could push.

As part of her sentence, she was ordered to accept the psychiatric help that came with prison. She was, and probably still is very mentally disturbed, but I think that she's dangerous.

If she can talk someone into killing himself against his will once, she can do it again. She would be better at it the second time.

I don't want her loose. She's predatory as she is, and I doubt she will change.