Guilty verdict in teen suicide trial

[Dispraise]

You clearly do not know what orwellian means.

Okay. Buh bye.

[PhantasmagoriaX]

I have a question, While all of these texts messages/relationship was going on where are the parents ??? If my son was depressed w/ suicidal tendencies I would be watching him like a hawk.

[Saucexorzski]

Lol we are so obsessed with the need to "save" everyone we now convict someone else of a crime in suicides cases..priceless.

[Nurasu]

This case, the verdict, and the precedence it sets doesn't sit well with me. I agree that I feel that she may be a piece of shit for her actions, but the pieces just don't fit in a way I am okay with.

In this case, she knew he was killing himself and where and told no one. I don't think the verdict was reached on the fact that she told him to alone.

[cubby]

This case, the verdict, and the precedence it sets doesn't sit well with me. I agree that I feel that she may be a piece of shit for her actions, but the pieces just don't fit in a way I am okay with.

I agree, the precedence is what worries me the most. I also agree, she is a piece of shit.

[Derah]

Declaring her NOT guilty is pretty much putting up a sign that says "hey, its perfectly okay, and legal to encourage other people to commit suicide, and to do nothing when they do so".

I'm glad she was proven guilty. She's a disgusting wretch and I hope she rots in jail. Her boyfriend needed help, REAL help, but she not only stood by as he struggled with suicidal thoughts, she encouraged them, and when he tried hesitantly to back away from his attempt, she told him to get back in the truck and just die. And for what? because she wanted extra attention as the poor grieving girlfriend.

Disgusting is the only word I can think of to describe her. It offends me that she has to breathe the same air as I do. The only air she deserves breathing, is the carbon monoxide that killed her boyfriend.

[AeneasBK]

The person I quoted linked a case of a young woman using inciteful language with harmful intent to, quote, "telling people to kill themselves all the time as a joke, just off the cuff", and implied that people who do so should be fearful of facing the same legal repercussions. That's not a stretch, that's precisely what they said.

And, I disagree with you. That is all.

Well hang on, did she not directly tell him to kill himself, as well as suggesting it in roundabout ways. Why do you keep downplaying it, like "using inciteful language with harmful intent", when I'm talking SPECIFICALLY about telling people to kill themselves?

People can be mean all they want, hard to grade it. Not impossible to make some imperatives illegal though.

[AeneasBK]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying that because you think it's mean to tell someone to kill themselves. If that then becomes illegal, you arrive at the position of deciding what is in fact "too mean" as a legal definition. I guess we already have something of the sort for "hate speech", but that doesn't usually enter into heated arguments or something like this could.

Isn't the "go-to" example the "shouting fire in a crowded theatre"?

[Deleted]

Did te OP actually read the text messages before to create this topic(there is a link inside you can read it its very interesting)

[cubby]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying that because you think it's mean to tell someone to kill themselves. If that then becomes illegal, you arrive at the position of deciding what is in fact "too mean" as a legal definition. I guess we already have something of the sort for "hate speech", but that doesn't usually enter into heated arguments or something like this could.

You make a very valid point. This is the slippery slope I was referring to earlier, how mean to "mean words" have to be to meet the definition of manslaughter. I still see this case being overturned on appeal. The precedent is too squishy, and the Justices can find reasons to put it aside.

She is still despicable, of course.

[Jtbrig7390]

What do you guys think? I can't believe telling someone to kill the self is now a crime. What's next full blown thought policing?

Well deserved.

If u tell me your going to kill yourself and I give you the gun I am at fault. She told someone who has clear metal issues to kill themselves. That puts her at fault and a accessory to a suicide.

[Derah]

It think it's terrible, don't get me wrong, but I don't agree with the ruling, since he's still the one who made the decision - not her. She wasn't with him. She didn't physically help him do it. She only wanted him to do it.

My guess is you're not aware of what Involuntary Manslaughter is.

There's quite a few things she could have done to prevent his death. A simple call to 911. Or you know, telling him NOT to kill himself.

If you're walking down the streets and see a guy getting mugged, and decide not to involve yourself out of fear for your own safety, that's your right. But if you then see the guy get stabbed multiple times, the muggers run off, and you just stand there, take a few pics of the bleeding man, and film him as he slowly bleeds to death, without doing ANYTHING to help him, you're partly responsible for his death. Even if you did not cause a single wound on his body.

A simple 911 call man. Having a bit of respect for human life isn't hard.

[NineSpine]

I agree, the precedence is what worries me the most. I also agree, she is a piece of shit.

There isn't really a new precedent here. Do you know what happens if I encourage someone to commit an assault or to rob a bank? I get charged as an accessory. This isn't new.

[cubby]

My guess is you're not aware of what Involuntary Manslaughter is.

There's quite a few things she could have done to prevent his death. A simple call to 911. Or you know, telling him NOT to kill himself.

If you're walking down the streets and see a guy getting mugged, and decide not to involve yourself out of fear for your own safety, that's your right. But if you then see the guy get stabbed multiple times, the muggers run off, and you just stand there, take a few pics of the bleeding man, and film him as he slowly bleeds to death, without doing ANYTHING to help him, you're partly responsible for his death. Even if you did not cause a single wound on his body.

A simple 911 call man. Having a bit of respect for human life isn't hard.

But there is no legal duty to report something that you weren't the physical of in the first place (I agree with you morally, respect for human life and all). You only have a duty as a citizen if you were the physical act of creating the dangerous situation in the first place. The case the judge used was a homeless couple lighting a fire in an abandoned building, and not reporting it, which caused the deaths of six firefighters.

I think the crux will come down to civic duty of care and whether her words alone were enough to constitute a physical act.

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There isn't really a new precedent here. Do you know what happens if I encourage someone to commit an assault or to rob a bank? I get charged as an accessory. This isn't new.

But accessory requires you to be part of the crime, in some way. A physical act, even if it's just planning it without actually doing it, or ordering it as in contract-for-hire. Her conviction is new territory, as only her words were used in the convincing.

(and I'm just trying to make the legal argument here)

[Dispraise]

Well hang on, did she not directly tell him to kill himself, as well as suggesting it in roundabout ways.

And that's why I said I don't have a huge problem with this verdict. She incited the boy's death, goaded him into it, and berated him for showing doubt. It's not downplaying it to describe it as "inciteful language". Exactly the opposite. That's what it is, and why I have no problem with her being convicted. I might quibble on the exact charges, but what she did should be illegal for that precise reason.

Isn't the "go-to" example the "shouting fire in a crowded theatre"?

With that go-to example it's not that you are shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre, it's that you are inciting panic by doing so.

[AeneasBK]

With that go-to example it's not that you are shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre, it's that you are inciting panic by doing so.

I only raised it as an easier example than hate-speech laws which some people disagree with on principle etc. The fire in a theatre is a more universally accepted example.


Anyway I'm not sure we do actually disagree; I must have misunderstood you or misrepresented my own point. The post that started this discussion seemed to be talking only about the act of telling someone to kill themselves (regardless of motive to do so). Initially I wasn't even talking about it being illegal I was surprised you took such opposition to it; it simply removes the motive excuse "Bantz guv'nor!" and makes the act of telling another to kill themselves illegal. I see no harm in that; and if you have no issue with this sentence it is safe to assume you don't either. . .

If I'm still confused just say so its starting to make my brain hurt and I'm trying to eat pizza

[cubby]

When you know someone is actively committing suicide and do nothing but encourage them you are guilty of manslaughter. Sounds like a decent precedent.

Morally I couldn't agree more. Legally, I'm fascinated. The Duty to Care extension to private citizens compared with "the right thing to do" is always a shitstorm of a discussion. Legally, if her words constituted enough of an action to "help create the dangerous situation" then she is fucked. And I hope she gets the max - 20 years. However, it feels like a dangerous precedent regarding "harmful words" and their impact if only verbally spoken, without consequent action.

I hope I don't sound like too much of a ghoul arguing the legal side of her case.

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And that's why I said I don't have a huge problem with this verdict. She incited the boy's death, goaded him into it, and berated him for showing doubt. It's not downplaying it to describe it as "inciteful language". Exactly the opposite. That's what it is, and why I have no problem with her being convicted. I might quibble on the exact charges, but what she did should be illegal for that precise reason.

See, for me, it's the manslaughter charge. He killed himself. She didn't. No actions, only words. I fully believe she should be punished for what she did, it's the murder conviction that's got me all bothered.

[Deleted]

I only raised it as an easier example than hate-speech laws which some people disagree with on principle etc. The fire in a theatre is a more universally accepted example.

It really isn't. It's just a go-to for drones and propagandists with next to no idea of how free speech works in the US.
Popehat to the rescue, trope 2:

Nearly 100 years ago Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., voting to uphold the Espionage Act conviction of a man who wrote and circulated anti-draft pamphlets during World War I, said"[t]he most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."

That flourish — now usually shortened to "shout fire in a crowded theater" — is the media's go-to trope to support the proposition that some speech is illegal. But it's empty rhetoric. I previously explained at length how Holmes said it in the context of the Supreme Court's strong wartime pro-censorship push and subsequently retreated from it. That history illustrates its insidious nature. Holmes cynically used the phrase as a rhetorical device to justify jailing people for anti-war advocacy, an activity that is now (and was soon thereafter) unquestionably protected by the First Amendment. It's an old tool, but still useful, versatile enough to be invoked as a generic argument for censorship whenever one is needed. But it's null-content, because all it says is some speech can be banned — which, as we'll see in the next trope, is not controversial. The phrase does not advance a discussion of which speech falls outside of the protection of the First Amendment.

[Dispraise]

I only raised it as an easier example than hate-speech laws which some people disagree with on principle etc. The fire in a theatre is a more universally accepted example.


Anyway I'm not sure we do actually disagree; I must have misunderstood you or misrepresented my own point. The post that started this discussion seemed to be talking only about the act of telling someone to kill themselves (regardless of motive to do so). Initially I wasn't even talking about it being illegal I was surprised you took such opposition to it; it simply removes the motive excuse "Bantz guv'nor!" and makes the act of telling another to kill themselves illegal. I see no harm in that; and if you have no issue with this sentence it is safe to assume you don't either. . .

If I'm still confused just say so its starting to make my brain hurt and I'm trying to eat pizza

You know what, I'm being a dick. I'm in a bad way today, and I'm letting my mood effect what I say.

I'm really sorry to you, @Freighter, and everyone else in the thread. Please disregard my posts.

[cubby]

Again, this wasn't based solely on her words. It was also based on her failure to ever act on his suicidal tendencies, and an active suicide, when both were well known to her. She knew right from wrong and didn't do ANYTHING to try to keep this person from committing suicide. She actively encouraged that path every step of the way. The issue here is a lack of understanding of mental health issues. She actively participated in this young man's death and did nothing to prevent it. She should pay for those actions.

I agree with you on the reasoning it was based on. My argument is that the legal reasoning wasn't sound. In her case, she did nothing physical to create the dangerous situation - although her words certainly enhanced and/or even created it. And that civic duty, legally speaking, has to have a physical aspect of it to create the dangerous situation, in order to then place a greater "duty to report" requirement on her behavior/knowledge.

The court cases are interesting (legal nerd) and I will be curious to see how the appellate branches handle it. I think it will all spin on whether her words constituted enough of an "act" to create the dangerous situation.

(and again, i think she should be burned at the stake for what she's done, i just find the legal issues fascinating)