Posted on 08/03/2017 12:41:54 PM PDT by BBell
A Massachusetts woman who encouraged her boyfriend to kill himself in dozens of text messages was sentenced to 2-1/2 years in jail on Thursday.
Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz said Michelle Carter only has to serve 15 months. He also sentenced her to five years of probation.
Carter was 17 when the 18-year-old Conrad Roy was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in July of 2014.
She urged Roy to follow through on his suicide talk, including telling him on the day he died: "The time is right and you are ready ... just do it babe."
"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," Carter wrote in another text.
Roy was found dead in his pickup truck in a parking lot near Boston.
"Miss Carter will have to live with the consequences of this for the rest of her life," defense lawyer Joseph Cataldo said in court Thursday. "This was a horrible circumstance that she completely regrets."
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
The Soviets loved their shrinks.
Agreed.
This should have been a civil case, not a criminal case.
The civil case is probably the next step.
The boy committed suicide. Suicide is defined as the act of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally. No matter what the girl may have said or not said to the boy he is singly responsible for his actions. She bears no legal responsibility whatsoever. To hold her criminally liable to any degree is a very slippery slope on which to tread. This verdict needs to be overturned.
I know exactly what you mean. I had a friend who did the same thing. She’d go on and on about how terrible her life was, and she’d tell me she was thinking of suicide. She had me afraid that if I didn’t say just the right things in response, she’d kill herself and then I would be to blame.
She did the same things to our mutual friends. She had everybody sick with worry over her. Every conversation or meeting began with, “Have you talked to _____?! I’m soooo worried about her!!” Finally it occurred to me that this was exactly what this friend wanted. She wanted everybody frantic and fussing over her! She also never asked anyone else how THEY were or what they might be going through in life. Like your friend, it was all her, her, her.
So finally we all agreed to stop enabling her, and she didn’t kill herself. She got over herself and stopped complaining!
I am disturbed by this outcome.
On the one hand, she definitely deserves to suffer in some fashion for her actions. Civilly perhaps, or something. But criminally? What do decisions like this do to the Law in the long run? Are there Freedom of Speech issues here? Is this the kind of case that proponents of hate speech laws can cite as justification?
On the other hand, the boy’s suicide was due to his own hand. He is/was responsible for his own actions.
I don’t know. Something seems off about this but I can’t really put my finger on why. I just have an overall sense that this doesn’t bode well in some way.
“I dont know. Something seems off about this but I cant really put my finger on why. I just have an overall sense that this doesnt bode well in some way.”
—
I agree.
I had a drunken relative who often called saying he was going to jump off a bridge and kill himself.
I got so weary of it I would just tell him to go ahead and jump.
He never did,but if he had would I have been blamed?
A VERY slippery slope.
.
I see no justice in this at all. He decided to end his life. She didn’t make him do it. He acted of his own volition. This is trampling all over her First Amendment rights. While it was tacky what she said, it wasn’t a legitimate crime. I know Rush used his show awhile back to expose this as well.
I think maybe what’s bothering me is the feeling that somehow, on some level, this further chips away at the notion of personal responsibility. Yeah. That might be it. Nobody made him kill himself. He didn’t have to do it. I think I’m getting closer to what’s bugging me but I’m still not certain.
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