IANAL. But based on my reading of Muffin’s link, my understanding of that case is that the guy didn’t beat his wife at all. (Muffin has said otherwise, so perhaps he can comment further.)
As I read that decision, the guy was charged with two crimes based on the same action. The action was taunting his wife into killing herself. The two crimes were 1) assault, and 2) manslaughter. The text of the assault statute is “assault and beat” so the charge against him was that he did “assault and beat”, but he only assaulted and beat her to the extent that convincing her to shoot herself counts as “assault and beat” in the same manner that it counts as manslaughter.
At any rate, the description of the facts of the case at that link make no mention of any beating when describing why it counts as manslaughter, so that was clearly not a factor. (This is why I think he didn’t physically beat her - if he had it’s very odd that the decision wouldn’t have mentioned it in the context of the manslaughter.)
On another note, I think the issue of whether suicide is a crime misses the point it was responding to.
The key question, as I see it, is “do we attribute to people the actions of other people, which they influence?” If we do, then regardless of whether suicide is a crime or not, there’s grounds for considering her a murderer, since we would be attributing the killing of this guy to her. But if we don’t, then we wouldn’t, and again, it would make no difference whether or not suicide is a crime.
In the case of a guy who tells someone to rob a bank, the same principle would be at stake. As I understand it, telling someone “I think you should go rob a bank” is not a crime, even if the guy wouldn’t have robbed the bank absent that advice. The crime is when the guy is part of a group involved in planning the crime. In that case, the criminal aspect is not based on a general principle that we attribute the actions of the robber to the planner, but that the law explicitly considers all involved in the crime to be jointly liable.
So again, I wouldn’t have a problem if there was a law saying “anyone who convinces another person to kill themselves is guilty of this statute”. What I dislike is holding someone responsible under an existing statute based on a general principle that people are responsible for the actions of other people.
One of the nice things about common law is that over time, fundamentals survive, new needs get met, changes in circumstances get accommodated, and irrelevancies get dropped. At each step of the way the judicial decisions can be tested. It certainly remains open for someone in a similar case to argue that physical presence is one of the elements that must be proven as in 1870, and then both sides will give their arguments.
Yup, telecommunication had not been invented in 1870, and the field of psychology was far less developed than it is today. These days we can do many things via telecommunications, from business meetings, to execution of contracts, to court of appeal hearings, to conversations with friends and loved ones, to sexting/video sex, and sadly – to fraud, to conspiracy of just about any criminal offence, and to manslaughter. Today we also have a better understanding of how our minds work, including how people can be driven to the point that the victim in the Carter matter was driven. Arguing that physical presence is or is not a necessary element of the case would be an argument that a court would entertain, and the arguments would get down to whether the lack of physical presence made a difference, essentially would the victim have been in a better position to reject Carter’s efforts at convincing him to kill himself had she been there in person, or would Carter have been in a better position to back off and stop trying to get the victim to kill himself had she been there in person (although obviously this last one would fail for being circular).
What it comes down to is that the method of communication was irrelevant in the Carter matter. What mattered was the head-space of the victim and how Carter manipulated it through her communications. There was extensive and immediate (as opposed to delayed) two way texting between the victim and Carter, and there does not appear to be any dispute over the identity of either of the texters (e.g. the Family Circus cartoon ghost named “Not Me”), or dispute over whether Carter not having been physically present shifted the onus on the psychologically messed-up victim to not kill himself (a.k.a. the good old boy defence of “Just hang up the phone you pussy!”), or dispute over misinterpretation of what was texted (e.g. it autocorrected “Don’t kill yourself” to “Kill yourself” over and over and over again).
I expect that the presence requirement of the 1870 would today be interpreted as presence in person or via telecommunications. It will be interesting to see if the issue was raised in the matter, and if the it gets raised if the conviction gets appealed.
Manslaughter is the killing of one human being by another that is not premeditated. In Massachusetts, involuntary manslaughter occurs when someone unintentionally causes the death of another person, when the defendant was engaging in some type of reckless conduct or while committing a serious battery upon another person.
It specifically stated “manslaughter is the killing of one human being by another.” How can one kill another “not” in the physical sense? According to the manslaughter definition I quoted, if she killed him, he could not have committed suicide. He died at the hands of another person.
Also, “that is not premeditated.”
From the OP’s link: “I thought you wanted to do this. The time is right and you’re ready, you just need to do it!” Carter wrote in one message.
and
*Breggin said Carter was in the grips of a “grandiose” delusion that she alone could help Roy find his way to heaven and she would care for his family.
Prosecutors focused on a series of text messages Carter sent Roy in the days before he killed himself.
“You can’t think about it. You just have to do it. You said you were gonna do it. Like I don’t get why you aren’t,” Carter wrote to Roy the day of his suicide.*
If she killed him through urging him to do it (sounds nonsensical, doesn’t it?), it sure sounds like the urging was premeditated.
Or maybe I’m not a good Googler? Or it’s very difficult to find on the internet?
From one lawyer’s website:
He says Voluntary Manslaughter it is defined by statute, but I couldn’t find that using my Google-fu either.
Sounds like an excluded middle. The law recognizes that in some cases, people can be held accountable for the actions they’ve influenced others to take. Enabling drunk driving and criminal mischief in kids are good examples.
Thus, the question as I see it is “In which special set of circumstances should we attribute to people the actions of other people?” Would me telling a perfect stranger to jump off a cliff qualify? Probably not, because it’s unlikely I would knowingly possess the ability to influence a stranger to do something as drastic as that. Would me repeatedly urging suicide on someone that I know is profoundly depressed and impressionable qualify? Yes, there’s a case that can be made for that.
In our criminal system, mentally ill people are treated differently than other adults. They are not held criminally responsible for their actions because its understood they lack the ability to reliably judge right from wrong. To be internally consistent, a society that makes such allowances for mental illness has to also provide legal protections for the mental ill when it comes to exploitation and abuse.
If I kept texting you to “Drink another beer” and then later texted you to “Go get some Taco Bell” do you think I would be held accountable for your drunk driving?
I think you’re read is correct and mine is wrong. (I had confused with a news article from last week in which a woman had been held for a few days, burned and shot with BBs in the breast and buttock.) Thanks for the correction.
My understanding is that enabling people to drive drunk is itself a crime. But what would be analogous to this case would be if enabling someone to drive drunk is itself counted as drunk driving. I don’t think that is correct. My understanding is that enabling someone to drive drunk is a crime consisting of “enabling someone to drive drunk”. It’s not a crime of “drunk driving”.
If there would be a law called “encouraging people to commit suicide”, then that’s analogous to drunk driving laws. But if there’s no such law, then just shoehorning it into the preexisting manslaughter law based on a general principle that you’re considered to have killed them simply by telling them to do something is not analogous to drunk driving.
I don’t see what this really matters to your larger point of contention. If she’d been charged as an accessory to something, would that really alter your objection substantially?
At any rate, she wasn’t convicted of 1st degree murder, but rather a lesser offence of involuntary manslaughter. So this tell us the court isn’t treating her as though she directly killed him.
I’m not sure how the “accessory” laws work. As above, if there was a law against “encouraging people to kill themselves”, I have no problem with it. I have a problem with the general principle.
But the law is still saying that you’re vicariously responsible for what other people do.
If there was a law against “encouraging people to kill themselves”, then you’re not vicariously liable for the other person’s actions. You’re liable for your own actions (in that your “encouraging” action is itself a crime).
Sorry, I don’t drink alcohol. See if Squeaky will be your Patsy.
It would depend on the jurisdiction. I don’t have a clue what MA law is on it (I think it uses the civil standard for determining criminal negligence, but don’t quote me on it, so I expect that would bring in a duty of care test for the prosecutor to meet).
If you were in my jurisdiction where “Every one is criminally negligent who (a) in doing anything . . . shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons” and where it is a criminal offence if that that criminal negligence causes injury and/or death, then both the driver and you would be charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm and/or criminal negligence causing death. The telephone aspect of it would be irrelevant, the distance between you and the crash would be irrelevant, and the driver’s culpability would not diminish your culpability.
And both of you would also be civilly liable for damages.
But what if it’s not “general”, though? What if there are certain conditions that have to be met for this kind of judgment, and this case met those conditions? Would you still have a problem it in principle?
So what? Do you have a problem with someone being held liable for a DUI-related death after handing their car keys over to drunk buddy? Because if you don’t have a problem with this, then all we’re quibbling about here is where the line is drawn between zero responsibility for indirect actions and full responsibility for indirect actions.
One text message? Dude, you’ve been drinking too much. Here’s what you posted:
If you had only texted “Go get some Taco Bell” then you would be off the hook, but in your hypo you “kept texting … Drink another beer” making it just a matter of connect the dots, for at the end of that daisy chain, you told a person whom you encouraged to get drunk, whom you had reason to believe was drunk, and who in fact was drunk, to drive, which on its face shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons, thereby meeting the test for criminal negligence in my jurisdiction.
Here’s a real-world example:
Two sisters came to visit one of the fellows upstairs in our frat, leaving their younger sister (just under the age of majority of 18) downstairs in the common area where a couple of us were studying. Well she was a noisy annoying git, so my buddy told her to “Go play in traffic.”
So she did.
And she got hit by a city bus.
Fortunately, she bounced, so she was only bruised and scuffed. Police investigated but did not arrest at that time, and the prosecutor held off for a couple of weeks deciding whether or not to press charges, but eventually decided not to. I have to wonder if the lack of significant injury combined with what I assume would be reluctance for the family to have it publicly known that two of their daughters were fucking a frat boy while their third near adult daughter played in traffic, and reluctance of the prosecutor to convict a promising student (he recently retired from a very successful legal career) who was minding his own business in his own residence, resulted in the prosecutor figuring there were more important cases to work on. The law existed, but there was no prosecution simply due to prosecutorial discretion.
Different jurisdictions have different laws, so I really can’t say how your hypo would be treated in your jurisdiction, but I’m fairly certain how it would be handled in mine. The only issue I am not certain about is that in those days (decades ago), there was more of a boys will be boys / laissez-faire attitude concerning the behaviour of young men and concerning incidents arising out of alcohol.
A prosecutor would have to establish that you were acting with an unreasonable disregard for someone’s safety. If you say “Well I thought he just had a beer and he seemed fine to me,” I seriously doubt that this is criminal behavior. However, if you watched him guzzle a bottle of whiskey and watch him stumble into his car and encourage him to drive in a drunken state, then that’s a different matter.
I think your fundamental understanding of the laws regarding manslaughter and/or negligent homicide are simply wrong. Now if you want to argue that the laws as they are and as they have been interpreted by courts for decades and even centuries are also wrong, that might be another thread of discussion.