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Guilty Verdict for Young Woman Who Urged Friend to Kill Himself

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In the summer of 2014, 18-year-old American Conrad Roy committed suicide. The police decided that his girlfriend was to blame for this: she allegedly forced him to lose his life via SMS. Now she is being tried for suicide by e-mail. Lawyers believe that this rare case will lead to a new page on cyberbullying in the law. Soon after the death of a friend, Carter organized a charity softball game in memory of Roy. She sent the $ 2,300 to the fund to fight depression and suicides. Besides, the girl wrote on Facebook and Twitter about how much she misses Roy. Messages appeared about once every couple of weeks but were later deleted for an unknown reason.

In February 2015, Carter was accused of bringing her boyfriend to suicide via SMS. The court presented more than 20 thousand messages to Carter and Roy, testifying to the fault of the girl (Bidgood, 2017).The police did not disclose why almost a year passed between Roy's death and the prosecution. Although all this time they had at their disposal the telephone of a teenager. From a long series of dialogues, the police learned that Michelle was aware of Roy's plans and urged him to die. Lawyer Carter hoped that the case closed due to the lack of corpus delicti. However, the trial has been ongoing for the second year. Initially, Carter's lawyer said that Carter did not have physical contact with the deceased at the time of her death. And did not give any tools for committing suicide, and her words could not overpower a person's desire to live and cause suicide.

The judge did not agree with the thesis. Now Carter is at large; she went on bail of $ 2,500 immediately after the charge. She is forbidden to use the Internet for any purpose other than student assignments (Seelye & Bidgood, 2017). As it became known in 2016, in the past, the girl was treated in a psychiatric clinic. At the trial, her attending physician said that during the last conversation with Roy, the girl probably did not understand what she was doing. He added that Carter could not influence the decision of his older friend.

There is currently no law in Massachusetts prohibiting people from committing suicide. However, if Carter is found guilty, she faces up to 20 years in prison for unintentional murder.

References

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License. Adapted

from OER compiled by BMCC Faculty Brenda Vollman from Adam McKee http://www.docmckee.com/OER/INTRO/index.html

Bidgood, J. (2017, June 6). She's Accused of Texting Him to Suicide. Is That Enough to

Convict? Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/us/suicide-texting-manslaughter-trial.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article®ion.

Seelye, K. Q., & Bidgood, J. (2017, June 16). Guilty Verdict for Young Woman Who Urged

Friend to Kill Himself. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/suicide-texting-trial-michelle-carter-conrad-roy.html.