Interestingly, the judge who ruled on Michelle Carter’s verdict (it wasn’t a jury trial), specifically argued that Michelle regular suggesting, supporting or urging Conrad Roy to kill himself did not amount to manslaughter. There was only one message in question, that had she not sent it he would have allowed her to walk free. Conrad got…
Interestingly, the judge who ruled on Michelle Carter’s verdict (it wasn’t a jury trial), specifically argued that Michelle regular suggesting, supporting or urging Conrad Roy to kill himself did not amount to manslaughter. There was only one message in question, that had she not sent it he would have allowed her to walk free. Conrad got out of his car while attempting to kill himself with exhaust fumes and when he told her he got out, she told him to get back in.
Conrad Roy had had suicide attempts prior to meeting Michelle and Michelle had a history of rehab for eating disorders and self harm. A really unfortunate fate that two extremely unwell and codependent teenagers crossed paths in the first place. Reading the messages, its hard to for me to say if Michelle even thought she was doing the right thing my supporting his expressed will to die. The story is sick and horrifyingly tragic, but I think there was a lot more to it than she bullied him to death for the attention.
Yes, I'm just about as much of a free speech absolutist as you get, but I haven't found the Carter verdict troubling at all once I learned about the facts of the case. Convicting someone of manslaughter for actively commanding a specific individual whom the speaker knows is in the middle of committing suicide to finish the job doesn't have much of a slippery slope beneath it.
Exactly. The narrative is way over-simplified. I've read the texts between them and it presents a very morally gray situation as only black and white.
Conrad was friends with Michelle for over 2 years. During this time, he stated his intention to kill himself as fact over and over and over again. She spent countless hours listening to his struggles as he dismissed her own, offering ideas and methods of help that he all rejected. Several times he would say something ominous then ghost for the rest of the night, leaving her to wonder if her friend had killed himself until he sporadically got back in contact a couple days later. Repeatedly she suggested getting an adult like his mom involved, and his response was that if she told anyone it could effectively end their friendship while also implying his mom already knew. It's true that a more mature person might have considered sacrificing the friendship for the sake of Conrad getting help, but Michelle was a teenager with depressive issues of her own; also, Conrad had already attempted suicide twice before, so his parents were well aware of his suicidal thoughts. It was only 2 years in when she began encouraging him, either because he had said so repeatedly and vehemently he wasn't going to be happy in life or because she felt (as she alludes to in the texts) that confronting him with the reality of his threats would help snap him out of it. While it's true she texted a friend that she told him to get back in the truck (which the prosecution used as key evidence despite her habit of lying while another text that he had forced himself on her was apparently not trustworthy enough to consider), there is no evidence of what was actually said in the phone call; on the contrary, the text records indicate she may have genuinely thought he wasn't actually going to do it. Conflicting also with the narrative that she just did this for attention was that she continued texting him for nearly two months after he died; these texts were just too extensive for it to all be performative.
Frankly, it's still bizarre to me that she was convicted. In my opinion, the prosecution's narrative she did it for attention does not hold up to a closer examination of her relationships with the friends and with Conrad. A closer examination, however, was not possible in the trial because the judge ruled that their conversations from two years ago, where she was consoling and trying to get him help before trying another tactic, should be stricken from the record, even though it puts their relationship into an entirely different context. What's much more likely than attention-seeking is a depressed teenager mishandling an already terrible situation. People say he wouldn't have killed himself if she hadn't gotten involved. Given his prior suicide attempts and his family's indifference to getting him more support (leaving him to seek help from someone who was ill-equipped), I find this strenuous at best.
Interesting. In my head, I went through what is generally considered over the line vs not and came up with that maybe the line is something like “detailed instruction on how to kill a specific person or carry out a large attack,” which seems like it matches the judge’s argument
Interestingly, the judge who ruled on Michelle Carter’s verdict (it wasn’t a jury trial), specifically argued that Michelle regular suggesting, supporting or urging Conrad Roy to kill himself did not amount to manslaughter. There was only one message in question, that had she not sent it he would have allowed her to walk free. Conrad got out of his car while attempting to kill himself with exhaust fumes and when he told her he got out, she told him to get back in.
Conrad Roy had had suicide attempts prior to meeting Michelle and Michelle had a history of rehab for eating disorders and self harm. A really unfortunate fate that two extremely unwell and codependent teenagers crossed paths in the first place. Reading the messages, its hard to for me to say if Michelle even thought she was doing the right thing my supporting his expressed will to die. The story is sick and horrifyingly tragic, but I think there was a lot more to it than she bullied him to death for the attention.
Yes, I'm just about as much of a free speech absolutist as you get, but I haven't found the Carter verdict troubling at all once I learned about the facts of the case. Convicting someone of manslaughter for actively commanding a specific individual whom the speaker knows is in the middle of committing suicide to finish the job doesn't have much of a slippery slope beneath it.
Exactly. The narrative is way over-simplified. I've read the texts between them and it presents a very morally gray situation as only black and white.
Conrad was friends with Michelle for over 2 years. During this time, he stated his intention to kill himself as fact over and over and over again. She spent countless hours listening to his struggles as he dismissed her own, offering ideas and methods of help that he all rejected. Several times he would say something ominous then ghost for the rest of the night, leaving her to wonder if her friend had killed himself until he sporadically got back in contact a couple days later. Repeatedly she suggested getting an adult like his mom involved, and his response was that if she told anyone it could effectively end their friendship while also implying his mom already knew. It's true that a more mature person might have considered sacrificing the friendship for the sake of Conrad getting help, but Michelle was a teenager with depressive issues of her own; also, Conrad had already attempted suicide twice before, so his parents were well aware of his suicidal thoughts. It was only 2 years in when she began encouraging him, either because he had said so repeatedly and vehemently he wasn't going to be happy in life or because she felt (as she alludes to in the texts) that confronting him with the reality of his threats would help snap him out of it. While it's true she texted a friend that she told him to get back in the truck (which the prosecution used as key evidence despite her habit of lying while another text that he had forced himself on her was apparently not trustworthy enough to consider), there is no evidence of what was actually said in the phone call; on the contrary, the text records indicate she may have genuinely thought he wasn't actually going to do it. Conflicting also with the narrative that she just did this for attention was that she continued texting him for nearly two months after he died; these texts were just too extensive for it to all be performative.
Frankly, it's still bizarre to me that she was convicted. In my opinion, the prosecution's narrative she did it for attention does not hold up to a closer examination of her relationships with the friends and with Conrad. A closer examination, however, was not possible in the trial because the judge ruled that their conversations from two years ago, where she was consoling and trying to get him help before trying another tactic, should be stricken from the record, even though it puts their relationship into an entirely different context. What's much more likely than attention-seeking is a depressed teenager mishandling an already terrible situation. People say he wouldn't have killed himself if she hadn't gotten involved. Given his prior suicide attempts and his family's indifference to getting him more support (leaving him to seek help from someone who was ill-equipped), I find this strenuous at best.
Interesting. In my head, I went through what is generally considered over the line vs not and came up with that maybe the line is something like “detailed instruction on how to kill a specific person or carry out a large attack,” which seems like it matches the judge’s argument