Goading someone into suicide: What would be a fair punishment?

In My Humble Opinion
81

I’m not sure if the Belushi Case is a good cite, but the scenario was that an individual who was in a state where they could no longer care for themselves and who had abdicated control over their life for a period of time to another person died while in their care.
The person with him injected him with drugs, granted at his drug-induced request, but he was impaired and incapable of making a sound and rational decision at that point. There was a plea bargain, but its still a conviction and would be considered precedent.

My question would be, did that person try to or succeed in trying to assert control over an individual whose consent was impaired? Did they accept or refuse that control?

Did the actions of the person in control have the intent of ending the impaired person’s life?

I sure hope it stays that way. I believe that it serves the public good to keep it that way.

82

If Smith did indeed inject Belushi and he died as a result of those injections, but she injected him with the intention of getting him high, not killing him, then she directly and accidentally caused his death–a clear case of manslaughter (if we ignore the difficulty of proving her intentions).

Here though, the girl indirectly but purposely “caused” the death, so it’s quite a different situation. Even if we may disagree to what extent her actions contributed to his death–I hesitate to say she caused it because that glosses over him having any volition at all–there was no accident. We also have no reason to believe he was impaired, nor would she have had any reason to believe he was impaired. He was not a child, did not have a mental disability, was not drunk or high, etc. He intended for his actions to result in his own death; she seems to have intended for her influence to lead to his death, and there is no evidence that it is not exactly what she hoped for.

Had she prayed for his suicide, but not informed him of her desire for this to occur, surely she’d have committed no crime, even in the event that her prayers came true. Had she texted her thoughts on the matter and he had ignored them, but not asked her to stop and not committed suicide, I don’t see what she could be charged with. Could the reality be that she did not actually expect that he’d do it based on her communications? Perhaps, but she seems only pleased by the turn of events, rather than dismayed, which makes her behavior all the more upsetting.

83

Apart from his suffering depression to the point of contemplating suicide, you mean?

84

Then was she in fact NOT responsible, as he was suicidal anyway?

His family was aware of his depression, yet they were apparently (from what I’ve read) not cognizant that he was a danger to himself. I’m not saying they are to blame, but he was not in a recognizable impaired state, even to those close to him.

“She talked me into it” isn’t an excuse we’d accept under most conditions anyway, let alone see as reason to punish the talker. “My girlfriend told me not to study for the test and I failed, so it’s her fault” would not get a make-up test for the complainer and a failing grade for her. “My girlfriend told me I should sell drugs” will not have the judge sending you home and hauling her in in your place. We might empathize with the convinced party and feel negatively toward the bad influence, but we expect even children to take responsibility for their own actions. The kid was slated to go to college and he was a boat captain, not an incompetent moron with no volition and agency of his own.

85

No, but if someone goads a person, *“Keep drinking, keep drinking, one more glass - no, keep drinking, one more glass, keep drinking, one more glass!” *until they die of alcohol overdose, that’s different.

86

While some states do have “social host liability laws,” they don’t seem to apply to your fellow guests. Whether what you describe–which is considered perfectly normal and “being hospitable” (minus the death) in some cultures–is actually illegal is a greyish area.

87

Except that she knew he was suicidal. As far as I can tell from the news coverage, the fact that she knew is not even in question.

So yes, if you tell someone who is so depressed that they are already contemplating suicide to go kill themselves, one (very) probable outcome is that they actually do.

This isn’t a case where she was “just joking” – she actually told him to get back in the car when he said he was considering changing his mind. Nor is it a case where she was trying to goad someone who was in good mental health, where you could reasonably expect that the most likely outcome is that he rolls his eyes at her and tells her to fuck off. She knew he was unwell, and she took advantage of that.

I agree that there’s no “duty to act” in this case, but her actions were wanton and reckless, at best, and she had at least a moral duty to not act to tell him to get back into the car. Personally I’m not on board with the “involuntary” part – why didn’t they charge her with voluntary manslaughter?

88

After telling him to do it, she played his death for sympathy. She wanted him dead for her own sake. She is a psychopath, and had obvious malice aforethought.

I’d actually call it worse than giving someone a drug overdose because they asked you to. I don’t think you have an ethical duty to keep someone alive if they don’t care about their own life. But this kid wanted to stop, and she pressured him into it, for what appears to be for her own sake.

The appropriate punishment depends on your punishment philosophy and whether psychopathy can be cured. At the very least, she should be locked up into a mental hospital until she is cured. But, if you assume a cure is impossible, I could also see this be the one time where the deterrent effect of the death penalty would be useful. Psychopaths lack empathy, so you’ve got to make them worried about themselves. The harsher the possible punishment, the more likely we can pressure them into not performing the action. And the death penalty is as harsh as we can go before “cruel and unusual” kicks in. (Some say it goes too far already. I’m still on the fence there, specifically because of psychopaths.)

Now, of course, from a legal standpoint, we won’t get any of that. Our system is just not set up to punish psychopathy but the crimes psychopaths commit. And, like it or not, while she had a lot of power in this situation, it’s not the same amount of power she’d have if she actually caused his death. Yes, depressive thoughts are hard to resist, and the victim was clearly barely hanging on. But there was still the ability, however slight, for him to make his own choice. So we have worse murderers out there that have gotten less of a punishment.

And, actually looking at the law in question, this is just barely hanging on, and there are precedents elsewhere that encouraging someone to commit suicide doesn’t fit the definitions. Under our current laws, this is the best we can do, and it’s far from certain. We’re in America, where freedom of speech is king, and her actual actions were speech. The closest thing we have that is definitely illegal are death threats, which this wasn’t.

I know some people who are very sure she’ll get off. I’m not that sure, but I believe it is a possibility. It would be a miscarriage of justice, as I believe she is a danger to society in her current state, but that’s the U.S. justice system for you.

89

Incorrect, because if you offer supportive therapy to someone who is suicidal, it is reasonable to believe that a likely outcome is that they get better. If you tell someone who is suicidal to go kill themselves, it is reasonable to believe that a likely outcome is that saying so will confirm their belief that no one cares and that they WILL kill themselves.

There’s no mystery here. We’re all quite familiar with how depression works. At 17 it’s reasonable to think that she understood it too.

  1. It’s possible that he wouldn’t have killed himself had HIS GIRLFRIEND not told him that he was worthless and should kill himself.
  2. He was a teenager. I daresay most teenagers share more with their friends and THEIR GIRLFRIENDS than they do with their parents.
90

The fact that he expressed suicidal thoughts does not turn him into an impaired person and her into a mentally-healthy authority figure. As a seventeen-year-old, not a doctor or therapist trained and licensed to assess and deal with his situation, she had no legal obligation to consider him as anything beyond her peer.

Her actions weren’t exactly reckless, as she does not seem to have engaged in risky behavior with a predictable-but-undesired result. This seems to be the result she wanted.

Morally, yes, she is a wretched excuse for a human being and quite likely mentally ill. I guess this could be taken to mean she deserves extra understanding and compassion, but she probably doesn’t.

The definition of “voluntary manslaughter” is definitely not met here–nothing provoked her and she did not kill him, in the heat of the moment or otherwise. I believe this term is usually applied to unpremeditated killing with provocation enough to keep it from being murder.

91

A big problem is that we currently don’t have any laws that deal specifically with verbal / emotional abuse (that is not also sexual in nature), despite a growing body of evidence that it is, in fact, incredibly damaging – on par with, if different from, physical abuse.

So we’re left with trying to contort laws that deal with physically damaging someone to fit a crime where the most direct damage was psychological. It goes back to a very long-term cultural attitude that anything that’s “all in your head” isn’t real. You can see this reflected even in the healthcare system – pre-ACA insurance companies could get away with covering virtually nothing for mental health services. Compare that to something like diabetes, where if an insurance company tried to get away with only covering 12 insulin shots a year there would have been an uproar. (Pre-ACA that was the actual limit of my insurance coverage for outpatient therapy – 12 visits per year.) Even under ACA, the limits to mental health coverage are still lower than for other illnesses.

92

I haven’t seen anything indicating that her texts called him worthless or that he felt uncared about, let alone that she convinced him that that was the case. His friends and family seem to have cared about him and not to know that she existed, though she apparently claims to have dated him for two years. He was not considered to need supervision by the people who were actually around him every day.

93

You don’t think “You should kill yourself. No really, get back in the car and do it” would convince him she thinks he’s worthless? Really?

(Protip: major depression often causes an inability to recognize that people care, even when it’s true. It really wouldn’t fortify you against a repeated onslaught of “I wish you were dead.”)

I agree, which is why I think “involuntary” is wrong in this case. She got the result she intended.

I won’t claim to be a legal scholar. There are probably different specific definitions of manslaughter depending on jurisdiction. I don’t think unpremeditated heat-of-the moment but intentional killing would fall under manslaughter, rather that would probably be second degree murder. A quick Google indicates that it’s killing someone in a manner “less culpable than murder,” whatever that means. Maybe something like reckless endangerment would fit better, I don’t know. It’s possible that they chose involuntary manslaughter simply because it was the most serious crime that generally fit.

I think this is a case where the law hasn’t really caught up to the fact that we have (finally) learned how damaging emotional abuse is. In the absence of more specific laws, I have no objection to broadening the scope of existing ones to include intentionally indirectly causing someone to die.

94

I think you’re assuming overtly abusive message content that may not have been present.

What if it was “You’ve wanted to do this for a while, so you should,” not “I wish you were dead”?

What if it was “I love you and think your pain is only going to end if you… get back in the car”?

When the messages are that you are worthless, deserve to die, ought to kill yourself because you are garbage, etc. then maybe some sort of “cyberbullying” charge could be made. But when they are more insidious than actual insults, they are no less harmful in this case, but even more difficult to sanely legislate against.

I believe that the difference between voluntary manslaughter and second-degree murder has to do with the presence of provoking circumstances. It can’t just be that you personally were provoked because you are a hyper-touchy spaz, but that the circumstances would be considered provoking by a “normal” person. Her case is not this at all.

I do have a problem with broadening laws when a circumstance does not fit existing laws but we really want to charge the person anyway.
Prosecuting people for not following laws that don’t quite exist is blatantly unfair, for one thing. I don’t want even terrible people to be treated unfairly, as I like to keep a firm separation between terrible and non-terrible. Once you start treating people unfairly, it’s not so clear which side you belong on.
I also think that setting precedent in this manner opens the door for less-deserving people to be prosecuted for doing something sort-of-similar, but with non-malicious intent, as intent is difficult to prove. Suppose an extremely pragmatic person has a conversation with a friend, friend lays out the pros and cons of his own suicide and pragmatic person is convinced by the rational reasons set before him. Must he legally keep his opinion to himself or risk prosecution?
Then there are the suicidal people who will let the fact that their enemies may be criminally prosecuted for their deaths be the deciding factor and the “heroification” of the suicidally-successful. What better way to ensure you are remembered and get back at people than to off yourself and have it blamed on bullies? The more we endorse the rhetoric that suicide in the face of other people’s meanness is justified, the more suicides we should expect, though we won’t call them suicides I suppose, but murders. “You might be a thousand miles away from me but I can have you charged with murdering me because you called me fat on the internet” is a dangerous weapon to put in the hands of a suicidal teen.

95

Her actions were both reckless and risky. It doesn’t take a medical degree to understand telling a suicidal person could have tragic results.

It goes back to the comparison to yelling fire in a crowded theatre, people could opt not to listen, no one’s forcing them to rush the door, if someone is crushed to death as a result of you yelling fire involuntary manslaughter is a reasonable charge. You most certainly aren’t going to escape the charge by providing evidence you really mentioned for someone to die.

Personally I’m glad the DA doesn’t think like you. Your course of action seems to be to throw your arms in the air and say we’ll the law doesn’t cover this one let her walk and change the law so we can catch the next one.

I think people who are the first to come up with new means of depravity are more dangerous and while we may not have a charge specific to the act we have laws that are close enough. If a jury can be convinced it fits justice will be served. The DA should use the tools at their disposal not sit around bitching they lack the right one. If you need to hammer in a nail and you have no hammer try hitting it in with a wrench, not a perfect solution but it’ll get the job done. Then you can go ask for a better tool to use if it comes up again

96

I don’t think that’s the legislature’s job. It’s the jury’s. They get to determine what she really meant, and for that matter, to what extent her meaning matters in the face of the outcome.

97

I’m surprised she’s out on bail rather than in a hospital undergoing psychiatric evaluation. I’d have thought both sides would insist on that, the prosecution for keeping her away from vulnerable people (which would mean extremely close supervision or solitary confinement in hospital) and the defence for arguing for an insanity plea.

If this charge fails some other charge will succeed, in civil court if nothing else.

And people who commit much more minor cyber-crimes find their lives extremely difficult due to social media. This girl will have problems with that forever. In a way, she’ll have even more problems if she is found not guilty, because the state will have no cause to protect her by issuing her with a new identity and so on like they very occasionally do for released criminals (at least they do in the UK; the Bulger killers and Maxine Carr are the first that come to mind).

So thankfully I think this woman will be punished even if the courts don’t manage to do so. Thankfully because she does sound like a very damaged and dangerous person.

Often I feel sorry for people who suffer from social media hounding after doing something wrong (which is usually not something wrong legally, just abhorrent), because the hounding is often worse than the original offence, but not in this case.

That analogy doesn’t work because murder is a crime and there have been numerous convictions for accessory to murder and similar crimes. Suicide isn’t usually illegal, but maybe in MA it is - does anyone here know?

That’s an enormous slippery slope from “get back in the car” (which isn’t disputed as a message she sent) to “you’re fat.” This girl gave a direct instruction which, if followed, would lead to death, she didn’t just insult him.

The case could set a precedent for telling someone to take specific, time-limited, context-limited steps to kill themselves when they could reasonably expect the other person to act on them, like chanting “jump, jump, jump” at someone standing on a window ledge. It doesn’t set a precedent for “oh, go jump off a bridge” generalised throwaway comments or for insults.

BTW, I’m reminded of Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case. Spoiler:

Poirot realises he’s in the company of a man who has subtly goaded several people into murder and suicide, but the man cannot be convicted for his undoubtedly evil acts. Knowing that he’s dying, Poirot decides to risk his own eternal soul (he’s Catholic) by ending the man’s life himself. It’s a more sophisticated storyline than most people would expect from Agatha Christie.

98

Her actions seemed intended to have the result that they did have. This is therefore not a case of someone engaging in reckless or risky behavior. To her, the result was not tragic, but desired. That’s why she seems so exceptionally awful.

If I yell fire in a crowded theater and say that my goal was for people to die and that I was pleased with that result, then “involuntary manslaughter” would not be the correct charge and choosing that charge would be a mistake on the part of the prosecution.

If I were the DA, I’d charge someone with a charge that fits their crime. If there is not one, then sorry, but they did not commit a crime. I’m not saying this particular charge absolutely does not fit, but it seems to be widely accepted that they are on shaky ground here. They are charting new territory and stand a good chance of failing to prove she is guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

She hasn’t come up with anything new here. This situation doesn’t come up because most people don’t want to convince others to kill themselves and those few that do are seldom able to. Most people will not be talked into suicide in spite of another’s best efforts. Here we have the unfortunate case of a relationship forming between a vulnerable young man and someone who desired his suicide, but it is a rare circumstance. Vast numbers of people would not behave like her if not for fear of legal prosecution.

Committing suicide and it being blamed on someone else however has become a disturbing trend. The dead teen’s picture is all over the media, the bad people are publicly flogged, and something that looks like justice is served. The idea that your picture will be up there next and your enemies will be made sorry is dangerously appealing to teens. Instead of reducing the suicides, it may be having the opposite effect. The need for a better tool is clear.

99

Canada has a very clear law against this sort of thing, and it’s pretty straightforward. (Caveat: this provision is about to be re-written for reasons unrelated to this thread.)

[QUOTE=Criminal Code]
241. Every one who

(a) counsels a person to commit suicide, or

(b) aids or abets a person to commit suicide,

whether suicide ensues or not, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years.
[/QUOTE]

Intrusive policing, suicide-as-revenge, etc., have not been the result of this provision. Honestly, “counsel[ing] a person to commit suicide” is not vague —it would be pretty clear whether someone has criminally done this. I think the broadness of “whether suicide ensues or not” is important — although it in theory expands the number of people who could be charged, it makes the actual suicide irrelevant. There would be no reason for police to suspect that someone has committed a s.241 offence just because someone committed suicide.

100

“Counseling” sounds kind of vague to me, but maybe it has an established meaning in this context that is more specific.

If I think someone would be well-advised to commit suicide, am I barred from voicing this if they seek my opinion?

Why is the law being rewritten and what will the new version say?