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Girl who convinced friend to commit suicide found guilty of involuntary manslaughter

U

urge26

Member
TheYanger said:
I expected these things to be like, they broke up and she was telling him to go fucking die or something. The same way people online go 'kys' if you pick Hanzo or something, reading those...jesus christ, quick 180 from 'you should get help' to legitimately helping this guy do it. Almost seems like she got bored in her own life and just wanted something crazy and exciting to ahve a 'story' or something.
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Yeah sane individuals don't behave that way, and it certainly looks like she wanted a story to get attention from her friends (and or future relationship, playing the sympathy card). But I honestly don't know if she was on meds herself.
 
V

Volcane

Member
Saw the text message exchange, and I was disgusted. There were many moments where he seemed like he didn't really want to go through with it, only for her to goad him on.
 
V

Vincent Alexander

Member
Volcane said:
Saw the text message exchange, and I was disgusted. There were many moments where he seemed like he didn't really want to go through with it, only for her to goad him on.
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Same. I had no strong feelings until I started going through their text messages. Jesus, this is fucked up. Seeing her call him "babe" and say she loves him is what really turns my stomach the most.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
Bolivar687 said:
I understand why the ACLU is wary but I still feel it was the correct decision. There needs to be culpability with intentionally encouraging someone you know is suicidal, especially in the commission of the act.
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The ACLU is wary because it's not a crime in MA to goad someone into killing themselves.

The prosecution turned manslaughter into a crime of words which is a worrisome path. (though see below not exactly)

Make what she did a crime.

And if I read the judges statement most people here are implying she got convicted for the texts saying go kill your self. If i'm reading it right the judge didn't really convict for that (again likely because it's not illegal yet on MA) and relied on her calling him while he was trying to kill him after he had left the CO2 filled because he was getting sick and demanding that he go back into the car.

On July 12, while she was miles away, he drove alone to a Kmart parking lot and hooked up a water pump that emitted carbon monoxide into the cab of his truck. When he became sick from the fumes and stepped out, prosecutors said, Ms. Carter ordered him by phone to ”get back in." He was found dead the next day.

Knowing that Mr. Roy was in his truck and in a toxic environment, the judge said, Ms. Carter took no action.

”She admits in subsequent texts that she did nothing, she did not call the police or Mr. Roy's family," Judge Moniz said. ”And finally, she did not issue a simple additional instruction: ‘Get out of the truck.'"
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Judge Moniz acknowledged that Mr. Roy had taken steps to cause his own death, like researching suicide methods, obtaining a generator and then the water pump with which he ultimately poisoned himself. Indeed, Judge Moniz said that Ms. Carter's text messages pressuring him to kill himself had not, on their own, caused his death.
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”He breaks that chain of self-causation by exiting the vehicle," Judge Moniz said. ”He takes himself out of that toxic environment that it has become."

Judge Moniz pointed out that, during previous suicide attempts in 2012, Mr. Roy had second thoughts and reached out to friends and family for help. But, the judge said, Mr. Roy did not get help when he talked with Ms. Carter.

”She instructed Mr. Roy to get back into the truck, well knowing his ambiguities, his fears, his concerns," Judge Moniz said. ”This court finds that instructing Mr. Roy to get back in the truck constituted wanton and reckless conduct, by Ms. Carter creating a situation where there is a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm will result to Mr. Roy."
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That makes the manslaughter case to me more valid because she directed him directly into a action that killed him. Rather than encouraging him though his own agency to kill himself (she never bought the supplies or started the car, etc)

That being said MA should use this to beef up bullying/suicide encoragement laws instead of relying on a novel legal construct which could have failed had there not been that specific order back to the car
 
N

NervousXtian

Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
At first I was against her being convicted, then I read a bunch of the texts and I don't feel bad for her at all.

She was obviously under stress from the whole ordeal, but goddamn... fucking hell she begged him to do it over multiple days.
 
S

Shanlei91

Sonic handles my blue balls
I read the headline and thought "yikes, that's a messy situation" then read what she texted him...she's nuts and clearly manipulated him.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
Also why those texts show clear sociopathy I hesitate to claim that she's irredeemable

Ms. Carter and Mr. Roy texted incessantly about their troubles: depression for him, an eating disorder for her, and profound social anxiety for both. When Mr. Roy told Ms. Carter in June 2014 that he was seriously considering suicide, she told him he had a lot to live for and urged him to seek help.

”I'm trying my best to dig you out," Ms. Carter wrote.

”I don't wanna be dug out," Mr. Roy answered, adding later, ”I WANT TO DIE."


By early July, she began to embrace the idea. ”If this is the only way you think you're gonna be happy, heaven will welcome you with open arms," she wrote.
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It seems like two deeply trouble individuals and actions on Ms. Carters part that rose to the level of a crime, notwithstanding any mental health issues on her part

This times article paints a much better picture than many of the reports I'm seeing

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
Here's another article about the crime not being the texts but her order to get back into the car

https://www.wired.com/story/texting-suicide-crime

The details of Carter’s case, of course, have as much to do with criminal law as they do First Amendment law. On July 12, 2014, Roy affixed a water pump to his truck in a Kmart parking lot in an attempt to poison himself with carbon monoxide. He and Carter had already exchanged hundreds of texts in which she aggressively encouraged him to kill himself and even suggested the means by which he should do it. But those texts alone aren’t what landed Carter a guilty verdict. Instead, the prosecution argued that when Roy began to feel the effects of the carbon monoxide poisoning and stepped out of his car, Carter was the one who instructed him via phone call to “get back in.” And that, Judge Lawrence Moniz said in his decision Friday, was the moment Carter assumed responsibility for Roy’s life and engaged in “wanton and reckless behavior,” knowing it could cause Roy “substantial harm.”
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The concept of the causal chain in suicide cases is one that courts have grappled with for decades, says David Gray, who teaches criminal law at University of Maryland’s Francis King Carey School of Law. The most famous defendant in such a case was, perhaps, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who was tried for murder for allowing terminally ill patients to use his “suicide machine” to kill themselves. Kevorkian was ultimately acquitted because the judge ruled that though Kevorkian provided his patients with the means to kill themselves, he didn’t actively participate in the “final overt act that causes death.”

“Kevorkian gave them the tools. He may well have wanted it, and believed it was the best thing for them,” says Gray. “But ultimately, they made the final choice. That act broke the causal chain.”

It wasn't until Kevorkian was actually filmed injecting a patient that he was finally found guilty and sentenced to jail time. At face value, that looks like an argument in Carter’s favor. She was, after all, miles from the scene of Roy's death when it happened. But Gray says, there are exceptions when the court decides that the person who commits suicide is compromised and not acting as “a free-willed agent.”
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C

cartographer

Member
NYCmetsfan said:
Also why those texts show clear sociopathy I hesitate to claim that she's irredeemable



It seems like two deeply trouble individuals and actions on Ms. Carters part that rose to the level of a crime, notwithstanding any mental health issues on her part

This times article paints a much better picture than many of the reports I'm seeing

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
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If it's actual sociopathy then there isn't much help she can reasonably get. "Faking it" or behavioral modification is about all you can do, and even then low percentages of patients respond favorably to treatment because they have no incentive to change.
 
W

WonkyPanda

Member
TheVampire said:
Why didnt they go with a jury trial?
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My assumptions are:

1) they were concerned with her ability to be sympathetic to the jury

and

2) because this was a seemingly technical/novel issue, coupled with the chance she isn't seen as sympathetic to the jury, means a judge would be in a better position to render a more legally sound verdict (EDIT: with the caveat that many legal experts saw this as an acquittal)
 
M

Machina

Banned
She's a sociopath. You can see during the verdict announcement that she doesn't really have any remorse. She looks a lot more concerned about herself.
 
M

Matrix XII

Member
Throw the book at her. Absolutely disgusting behaviour. Anyone who has suffered from depression and/or suicidal thoughts knows how devastating messages like this from a "loved one" could be.

It's so heartbreaking because Conrad was really looking for help, for care. He was nervous, was thinking about the effects of his death would have on his family. This isn't someone who, in my mind, really wanted to go through with it. He was goaded and pressured into it.

Carter, your life should be filled with guilt and shame forever.
 
Z

Zizbuka

Banned
I would love to talk to her, and have her tell me honestly what her thinking was. Is it just some perverse pleasure, like poisoning an animal to watch it die?
 
T

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
To me this is even more fucked up than straight murder.
At one point he'd changed his mind and backed off and she just kept pushing.
If true evil exists then this is what it looks like.
 
Z

Zaventem

Member
I hope she doesn't do any absurd time, what she did was evil but it's not asking for the years i see angry people want to put her away for on various sites. Had a feeling she would be convicted when the text revealed she blamed herself for not stoppong his death.
 
H

hirokazu

Member
Zaventem said:
I hope she doesn't do any absurd time, what she did was evil but it's not asking for the years i see angry people want to put her away for on various sites. Had a feeling she would be convicted when the text revealed she blamed herself for not stoppong his death.
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That’s just fucking bizarre. Not stopping his death? He was figuratively on a ledge, she goaded him to step out, and when he clung back she pushed him off. How is she blaming herself for not stopping his death, rather than for causing his death?
 
Paracelsus

Paracelsus

Member
There's no doubt the ruling is correct. It's already bad enough when you do it online to someone you never met, the classic "kill yourself", but when you do it to someone you know, someone you were very close with, then you deserve everything coming to you, because obviously you had some emotional edge over the person and you should take responsibility.
 
D

DarknessTear

Banned
Have you guys seen the texts? She calls him a pussy for not doing it, gets aggressive about asking if he will on a regular basis. She was heavily encouraging him. No sympathy for her.
 
Z

Zaventem

Member
hirokazu said:
That’s just fucking bizarre. Not stopping his death? He was figuratively on a ledge, she goaded him to step out, and when he clung back she pushed him off. How is she blaming herself for not stopping his death, rather than for causing his death?
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Yea, her text was sent in hindsight after knowing fully what she did which shows she did have some form of empathy/guilt. Also their was a drastic change in tone from telling him not to keep fighting and not take his life to full on encouraging him to kill himself which i found was weird. She was charged as a minor so we'll see how this plays out.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
HariKari said:
Given the state of mental health in this country, it's important this sort of thing is punished.
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Wow this post went down a completely different road than I expected it to.
 
T

Transhuman

Unconfirmed Member
There's a certain amount of irony with Gaf's lack of empathy for a girl whose crime originates from a lack of empathy
 
A

A Link to the Past

Banned
Transhuman said:
There's a certain amount of irony with Gaf's lack of empathy for a girl whose crime originates from a lack of empathy
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That's not really comparable at all. The lack of empathy is for her wanton disregard for his life to the point where she actively pushes him to do it. We lack empathy for her plight because she willfully put him in a situation she knew would kill him.
 
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