The prosecutor won.
Again, all of your examples are of tested behaviors that have such a high correlation with safe indulgence that there is no sense of gesturing to kill oneself.
People would think me a nut if I said, “If you don’t give me love, then I’ll fly on an airplane.”
But, if I saw a bit on my wrists or wrap a belt around my throat, then those are known suicidal methods. One can reasonable use them to telegraph despair without necessarily meaning to kill oneself. The danger of a gesture is that one accidentally be successful.
So, I repeat. Slumping down with a belt around one’s neck requires great determination to follow through with an actual asphyxiation. It’s contrary to self-preservation and good sense.
So, it is UNUSUAL. It is easy to imagine a gesture gone bad OR a great determination to kill oneself. The sawed on wrist with a dull blade suggests a real possibility of a gesture gone bad. The ability to stand suggests a gesture gone bad.
So, if they end up telling the family this might have been a gesture gone bad, then I won’t be the least bit surprised.
“The prosecutor won.”
That doesn’t mean he was correct, now does it? It just means his argument convinced 12 people.
“Again, all of your examples are of tested behaviors that have such a high correlation with safe indulgence that there is no sense of gesturing to kill oneself.”
Yes, there is an exact correlation. The mechanism you use to override the instinct in those cases is exactly the same one you would use when you commit suicide: the force of will. If you can do one, you can do the other just as easily. The difference is a matter of conscious recognition of a greater danger, not increased difficulty of overriding the same instinct with the same mechanism. Once you have made the conscious decision to commit suicide, that difference is not going to be a factor.