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What a horrible girlfriend.
What a horrible girlfriend.
In a case that hinged largely on a teenage couple's intimate text messages, Michelle Carter was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter Friday in the 2014 death of her boyfriend, who poisoned himself by inhaling carbon monoxide in his pickup truck, a Massachusetts judge ruled.
"She called no one, and finally she did not issue a simple additional instruction: Get out of the truck," Bristol County Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz said during a 15-minute explanation of his rationale.
Carter, 20, cried silently as Moniz spoke. She stood to receive the ruling, which could set legal precedent for whether it's a crime to tell someone to commit suicide.
Prosecutors had argued that Carter sent Conrad Roy III, 18, numerous text messages urging him to commit suicide, listened over the phone as he took his last breaths, and failed to alert authorities or his family that he'd died. The judge agreed.
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"This court has found that Carter's actions and failure to act where it was her self-created duty to Roy since she put him in that toxic environment constituted reckless conduct," the judge said. "The court finds that the conduct caused the death of Mr. Roy."
Moniz let Carter, who was tried as a juvenile because she was 17 at the time of the crime, remain free on bail until her sentencing on August 3. She was ordered to have no contact with members of the Roy family. She cannot apply for or obtain a passport, nor can she leave Massachusetts without permission from a judge.
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Legal experts had anticipated Friday's ruling.
"The wrinkle here is whether she coerced him or pressured him into doing something that he wasn't in a position to rationally and autonomously decide to do because he was in such a depressive state," Daniel Medwed, professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern University, said days before Moniz ruled.
"It's a square peg in a round hole," he said. "It's not a perfect fit for manslaughter."
I might feel more sympathy for her if she hadn't ridden the attention whore pony so hard during his suicide and the after math.This poor girl was clearly an unstable damage case herself. Not sure why that is being so downright callously overlooked. Suicide understandably seemed like a good idea to her, prob legit thought she wash elping her friend by encouraging him to act.
GUILTY ... YIPPEE!
I hope she gets jail ... I really hope the courts didn't give her bail until sentencing
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Early to mid-twenties is when your frontal lobe is completely developed. Yes, antidepressants can alter anyone, especially underdeveloped brains, however, they are more likely to kill themselves. From my understanding, this all started way before she was on any kind of medication.Can someone explain for me.. that doctor that said she was on Celexa..said because she was a teenager, her frontal lobe was still developing... but the girl was almost 18. When does your frontal lobe stop developing? And if that drug is so dangerous, why do they give it to teenagers? He made it sound like, because she was not yet 18, she was in danger of some crazy side effects, but once she turned 18, all would be ok, like 18 was a magic number... or am I misunderstanding ?
~shadow
Early to mid-twenties
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...end-kill-himself-text-could-get-light-n788856A Massachusetts woman convicted of involuntary manslaughter after she coerced her boyfriend to take his own life via text message will learn her fate on Thursday.
Experts say a host of mitigating factors could result in 20-year-old Michelle Carter being sentenced to little to no prison time for her role in the July 2014 suicide of 18-year-old Conrad Roy III.
Carter faces up to 20 years in prison after prosecutors successfully painted the then 17-year-old as an attention-hungry teen, who craved playing the role of the grief-stricken girlfriend.
Michelle Carter has been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in the suicide of her boyfriend, Conrad Roy III.
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Michelle Carter, whose own words helped seal her involuntary manslaughter conviction in the suicide of her teenage boyfriend, was sentenced to 15 months in a Massachusetts jail Thursday -- but will remain free pending appeals.
"This court must and has balanced between rehabilitation, the promise that rehabilitation would work and a punishment for the actions that have occurred," said Bristol County Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz, emphasizing rehabilitation as a primary component of juvenile justice.
Hundreds of Carter's text messages presented as evidence over six days of testimony in June convinced Moniz of her guilt in a criminal case that hinged largely on intimate cellphone exchanges between Carter and 18-year-old Conrad Roy III. Moniz sentenced Carter to a two-and-a-half-year term -- with 15 months in jail and the balance suspended plus a period of supervised probation.
Moniz granted a defense motion to stay the sentence, meaning she will remain free pending her appeals in Massachusetts.
The case could spur the Massachusetts legislature to pass a law that makes it a crime to engage in "coercing or encouraging suicide," Medwed said. Such a law already exist in about 40 other states.
The mother of Conrad Roy has filed a $4.2 million wrongful death lawsuit against Michelle Carter, following Carter's manslaughter conviction for pressuring her son into suicide.
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In the suit, filed in Norfolk Superior Court on July 6, Lynn Roy claims that Roy's death has caused $4,224,000 in reasonably anticipated lost wages, citing the captain's license he obtained shortly before his suicide as evidence of his earning potential.
Carters' negligence and reckless conduct caused Roy to sustain "severe personal injuries, great conscious pain and suffering of body and mind and ultimately death," the suit alleges.
Attorney Eric Goldman, one of the lawyers representing Lynn Roy in the suit, said the goal is to establish a memorial for Conrad, not profit financially.
"The family would obviously rather have their son back," Goldman said. "What the Roys are looking to do is somehow memorialize Conrad."
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Many wrongful death suits end in a settlement and the $4.2 million claim could be a baseline for those negotiations, Medwed said. But members of the Roy family, some of whom voiced dissatisfaction with the stay in Carter's sentence yesterday, could also see the case through to a jury if they want a more public form of justice.
"Part of it depends on if this is a message lawsuit where they really want their voices heard," Medwed said.
Goldman said no settlement talks had begun but that the family is open to negotiations.
Carter's attorney Joseph Cataldo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Michelle Carter, whose encouragement of her 18-year-old boyfriend’s 2014 suicide led to her conviction and a 15-month prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter, has appealed to overturn the verdict.
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In court papers filed last month, her attorneys say the conviction based on “words alone” is a violation of her right to free speech, according to the Associated Press.
“This appeal presents novels question of constitutional and criminal law,” her attorneys wrote in the appeal filed Feb. 5 with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, reports the Boston Globe. “It will set precedent for who may be prosecuted for encouraging suicide with words alone.”
“Carter is the first defendant to have been convicted of killing a person who took his own life, even though she neither provided the fatal means nor was present when the suicide occurred,” her appeal states. “Nothing in Massachusetts law made clear to 17-year-old Carter, or anyone else, that such circumstances could constitute involuntary manslaughter.”
Carter had faced up to 20 years in prison. She actually was sentenced to two-and-a-half years, but all but 15 months of that sentence were suspended and her sentence was put on hold at the time it was handed down until the expected appeal could be resolved. In the meantime, she has been free.
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The case has been closely watched by legal scholars. Carter’s defense has argued that the courts “created new law” in Massachusetts in order to allow her prosecution.
has appealed to overturn the verdict.
Yes. It was all about Her. This whole melodrama is an exercise in her self absorption . Her concern. Her "heroic" reaction.He at one point asked her to commit suicide with him and she refused but continued to be in a relationship with him. Is it possible she was tired of him and his ongoing depression and suicidal thoughts, maybe. She could have ended the relationship and cut contact with this young man or notify his family. What makes this young woman very dangerous is that she encouraged and goaded this man into following through on ending his own life which at the time he was having second thoughts. Her alleged caring and compassion was for herself when she was arrested and held accountable for her role in the death of this young man.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judical Court will take on the appeal of Michelle Carter, the Plainville woman convicted last June of manslaughter for pressuring her boyfriend Conrad Roy III into killing himself.
On Wednesday, the SJC approved Carter's petition to bypass the Massachusetts Appeals Court in favor of review by the state's highest court.
In a February legal filing, Carter's newly bolstered defense teamargued that her appeal raised novel legal questions and constitutional challenges that merited the SJC's attention.
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In preparation for her appeal, Carter has hired additional attorneys with experience in major criminal controversies. William Fick, one of her new lawyers, helped defend Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; another, Daniel Marx, helped overturn convictions tainted by disgraced state drug lab chemist Annie Dookhan's faulty testing.
Her defense team also includes attorneys Joseph Cataldo and Cornelius Madera, who represented her at trial.
Her defense intends to argue both that Carter's conviction violated the U.S. and Massachusetts constitutions and that Moniz erred in the legal reasoning for his conviction.
"It will set precedent for who may be prosecuted for encouraging suicide with words alone," Carter's attorneys wrote. "In addition, the extraordinary public interest in this case, which implicates a major controversy about assisted suicide and which has garnered international attention, warrants immediate review by the Commonwealth's highest court."