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She’s Accused of Texting Him to Suicide. Is That Enough to Convict? - The New York Times

posted onJune 7, 2017
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Article snippet: TAUNTON, Mass. — The teenagers shared mundane text messages — about a walk and a trip to get ice cream. But there were darker ones, too. “It’s time, babe,” Michelle Carter, then 17, texted to her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, who had just texted that he was “ready.” “You know that,” she wrote. “When you get back from the beach you’ve gotta do it. You’re ready.” “Okay, I will,” Mr. Roy, 18, typed back, adding, “No more thinking.” “Yes, no more thinking,” Ms. Carter wrote. “You need to just do it.” Ms. Carter, now 20, is on trial here on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Mr. Roy, who was found dead in his truck in 2014, after that exchange of text messages, more texts and two phone calls. Mr. Roy was found near a compression pump that had filled the vehicle with carbon monoxide, in a Kmart parking lot in Fairhaven, Mass., and his death was deemed a suicide. But prosecutors say Ms. Carter was to blame. The case against Ms. Carter is not without precedent, but such cases are rare and raise unusual challenges for prosecutors: To what extent can one person be responsible — and criminally liable — for the suicide of another person? Ms. Carter’s lawyers, and other civil liberties advocates, have noted in legal filings that Massachusetts, unlike many other states, has no law against encouraging someone to commit suicide and have said prosecutors are stretching the definition of involuntary manslaughter. “The key issue is going to be causation, of who actually ... Link to the full article to read more

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