Woman found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in text/ suicide case

[gigi]

@Omar_Little

The one thing that I didn’t realize until reading the OP’s article was that these two people didn’t really spend a lot of time together. They met in Florida by coincidence while both were from Massachusetts but rarely ever saw each other with the bulk of their relationship being texts and emails through a long distance relationship.

That’s not a real relationship, imho. So sad that Roy put so much credence on what she said.

The bulk of contact being texts and emails means it’s not real? What about…um…message board posts!!!

[x-ray_vision]

@gigi

The bulk of contact being texts and emails means it’s not real? What about…um…message board posts!!!

I don’t consider anything I have with anyone on this board part of a “real” relationship. If we were all talking in person, and I have been doing that with you folks for almost 15 years, that would certainly change things.

[Projammer]

@Paranoid_Randroid

I don’t know what the right outcome is here. It may well be true that involuntary manslaughter is the proper verdict. But there’s enough nuance that I’m uncomfortable with a blanket condemnation of this young woman as a monster. He was sick; but she was sick too.

You can feel sorry for the rabid dog, but you still have to take action to keep it from harming someone else.

[purplehearingaid]

@x-ray_vision

I don’t consider anything I have with anyone on this board part of a “real” relationship. If we were all talking in person, and I have been doing that with you folks for almost 15 years, that would certainly change things.

This is about 2 troubled lonely teenagers and it been reported a numbers of times on the news they were in a relationship . I understand what you mean about it being not a 'real relationship ’ but sadly it was very real to the two people here and cost the guy his life .

[Whack-a-Mole]

@John_Mace

I could be wrong, but my understanding is the big issue here is her not getting help when she knew he was dying.

Is there a duty to help in the US?

I thought there was no legal obligation for someone to render aid (even if that is nothing more than a phone call). If you see a car accident and are the only conscious person around you can walk away if you want to. It’s a shitty thing to do but not illegal.

Heck, I thought even police are [not legally required to render aid](Straight Dope Message Board boards.straightdope.com http://bit.ly/2skMUky) and it is in the job description (e.g. the Los Angeles PD motto “To protect and serve”).

Make no mistake, this young woman is despicable but not sure she is criminally guilty (in my opinion regardless how much I want her to be).

All that said I am not sure about it. Genuinely curious.

[Starving_Artist]

@Whack-a-Mole

Is there a duty to help in the US?

I wondered about this part of the judge’s ruling myself. He said that by telling Roy to get back into the toxic environment in the truck, she had a self-created duty to tell him to get back out of it. There were a couple of other remarks he made too that to me don’t stand up to reason. It’s as though he was reaching to arrive at a guilty verdict by declaring that certain aspects of her behavior constituted specific violations of the law when in reality they didn’t. I have a feeling her conviction might very well be overturned on appeal.

And while I haven’t yet looked all that far into Michelle Carter’s background, this article from ABC News says that she, like the boy who killed himself, has long suffered from depression, and that she has been treated for anorexia in the past. And as we all know, anorexia itself is a severe mental disorder. So far I’m seeing more of a pretty badly screwed up kid mentally than I am a sociopath. Would a sociopath even care if they weren’t popular?

[Miller]

@Starving_Artist

Would a sociopath even care if they weren’t popular?

I’m certainly no expert on the subject, but AIUI, that’s one of their defining traits.

[Sunny_Daze]

@Whack-a-Mole

Is there a duty to help in the US?

I thought there was no legal obligation for someone to render aid (even if that is nothing more than a phone call). If you see a car accident and are the only conscious person around you can walk away if you want to. It’s a shitty thing to do but not illegal.

Heck, I thought even police are [not legally required to render aid](Straight Dope Message Board boards.straightdope.com http://bit.ly/2skMUky) and it is in the job description (e.g. the Los Angeles PD motto “To protect and serve”).

Make no mistake, this young woman is despicable but not sure she is criminally guilty (in my opinion regardless how much I want her to be).

All that said I am not sure about it. Genuinely curious.

I think it varies state to state. These laws are called “Duty to rescue” or “Good Samaritan” laws.

In the United States, as of 2009 ten states had laws on the books requiring that people at least notify law enforcement of and/or seek aid for strangers in peril under certain conditions: California,[10][11] Florida,[10][12][13] Hawaii,[10][14] Massachusetts,[10][15] Minnesota,[10][16] Ohio,[10][17] Rhode Island,[10][18] Vermont,[10][19] Washington,[10][20][21] and Wisconsin.[10][22] These laws are also referred to as Good Samaritan laws, despite their difference from laws of the same name that protect individuals who try to help another person.[1] These laws are rarely applied, and are generally ignored by citizens and lawmakers.[1]

Wikipedia Article

I believe that these laws are more generally used to protect those who try to help from liability afterwards.

[Starving_Artist]

@Miller

I’m certainly no expert on the subject, but AIUI, that’s one of their defining traits.

Well, something else for me to look into, I guess, but I would have thought that, lacking a conscience and empathy for others, sociopaths would be fairly oblivious and unconcerned as to how others feel about them…other than how those feelings might be manipulated to serve the sociopath’s ends, that is.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

What she needs to do if she wants friends is to trim those goddamn eyebrows.

[elbows]

Maybe I’ve seen to many American cop shows but isn’t her crime better described as, and/or why wasn’t she charged with, ‘depraved indifference’?

Because that seems to somewhat perfectly describe what her crime really was, as opposed to involuntary manslaughter. ( I mean, involuntary? Seriously?)

[Whack-a-Mole]

@elbows

Maybe I’ve seen to many American cop shows but isn’t her crime better described as, and/or why wasn’t she charged with, ‘depraved indifference’?

Because that seems to somewhat perfectly describe what her crime really was, as opposed to involuntary manslaughter. ( I mean, involuntary? Seriously?)

IANAL –

It does seem to fit till you read a bit further (bolding mine):

To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant’s conduct must be 'so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime. **Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the injuries actually resulting. **

SOURCE: https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/depraved-indifference/

So I guess the question is did she “create a risk” here?

I’m not sure that words alone can do that. If I tell you to go jump off a cliff and you jump off a cliff did I create that risk?

On the flip side the guy was in the process of killing himself, seemed to want to back-out but she coaxed him back to it.

Not sure…

[Broomstick]

@Starving_Artist

I’m somewhat suspicious of the prosecutor’s contention that she was unpopular and wanted sympathy for being the surviving girlfriend. If anybody ever had the sort of pretty, well-groomed, cheerleader and teacher’s pet type of appearance that usually goes into being a popular girl in school, it would be her.

Wow.

Since when is being pretty a guarantee of popularity? Or maybe you’re just that ignorant of how young women treat each other. Plenty of pretty girls get ostracized, bullied, ignored, pushed-around, or otherwise mistreated. Pretty and nasty isn’t likely to be popular, and I think there’s a high probability this girl is nasty in general.

[Tee]

I’m on the fence about the verdict and leaning towards disagreement. Her texts and her conduct were vile, but it comes down to one moment in time where her actions were said to be causation, warranting manslaughter, and I’m just not seeing the point at which her actions overcome his in terms of responsibility. IOW I can see all the ways in that her actions were wrong, but not that she killed him.

There is a sub-article in a Boston paper that say “Judge Affirms Mother: Her boy wanted to live”. No, I’m definitely not seeing her boy wanting to live. Maybe that colors my thinking.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Starving_Artist

And while I haven’t yet looked all that far into Michelle Carter’s background, this article from ABC News says that she, like the boy who killed himself, has long suffered from depression, and that she has been treated for anorexia in the past. And as we all know, anorexia itself is a severe mental disorder. So far I’m seeing more of a pretty badly screwed up kid mentally than I am a sociopath. Would a sociopath even care if they weren’t popular?

Anorexia is indeed a mental disorder but I do not think just any mental disorder will get you off the legal hook. She has an eating disorder but she is still in touch with reality and therefore responsible for her actions. I don’t think depression absolves her either.

I’d think (hope) that a person would have to be markedly unable to understand consequences before they get legal cover.

That said IANAL.

[SlackerInc]

@VinylTurnip

Your views on culpability for convincing others to kill are duly noted, um, manson.

Charles Manson conspired with his followers to murder people who had no interest in dying. This verdict is a travesty and I hope it is overturned on appeal.

[madsircool]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

What she needs to do if she wants friends is to trim those goddamn eyebrows.

I have to disagree. I like me some bushy eyebrows on a woman.

[madsircool]

@SlackerInc

Charles Manson conspired with his followers to murder people who had no interest in dying. This verdict is a travesty and I hope it is overturned on appeal.

Since her actions directly resulted in his death, I disagree. Later he still might gave taken his own life. Or he might have gotten the help he needed. But her direct actions made is a certainty that the later would not happen.

[Chronos]

Quoth Sage Rat:

You’re assuming a rational mind. Not to say that you’re not correct, but your expectations for the priority ordering of someone under deep stress is out of alignment with the concept of “guilt”. While I have not met this particular girl, I think it’s safe to say that her principal instinct was for self-preservation not for murder.

Think of it like two people, a man and a woman, standing on the top of a tall column, with barely enough room for them to both stay back-to-back together. He loses his balance temporarily, almost falling off and almost pushing her off. She panics and pushes back, knocking him off entirely. Is that a problem of her killing him, or more a problem of the situation that the two are in?

Wait, what? Self-preservation? Where did that come from? What was she defending herself from? On all of the planet, was there room for only one person outside of his truck, and so he had to get back in to make room for her?

[SlackerInc]

@Grrr

This was my original position too.

But then I started thinking: If a married woman told her secret lover: “You should kill my husband so we can be together” And then Loverboy does indeed kill her husband, shouldn’t she have at least some culpability?

The answer I kept coming up with is yes.

I strongly reject the idea that when my father took his own life (I hate the phrase “committed suicide”), he was doing anything remotely comparable to murder. It’s like equating consensual sex to rape (as some radfems do).

@BigT

Then you don’t actually think it is reprehensible.

@BigT

What she did is reprehensible, and that is precisely why the law should provide criminal penalties for it.

This is the issue in a nutshell. Some people believe in criminalizing any reprehensible behavior; others support free speech and civil liberties, including the right to be a piece of shit as long as no “sticks and stones” are involved.

Let’s say I am walking by the makeup counter at Macy’s, and I see a chubby and obviously insecure teenaged girl experimenting with mascara. Just for my own twisted amusement, I lean over and say “nothing they sell here can fix that much fat and ugly”. Is that reprehensible? Certainly. Should I be socially ostracized for such behavior? You bet. Have I committed a crime for which I could be tried and incarcerated? No way.