Girl found guilty of manslaughter in texting suicide case

Was this the right call? Essentially this girl had this boyfriend who was admittedly suicidal and apparently talked about it often. She has been charged with manslaughter because she encouraged her boyfriend to take his own life. She could face up to 20 years.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/us/michelle-carter-texting-case/index.html

Some argue she shouldn't have been found guilty, but one key part of this is that the kid began to change his mind. He got out of the car he was intending to commit suicide in and she ended up instructing him to get back in and essentially finish the job.

If he had expressed the urge to kill himself and she merely just urged him to do something he said he wanted to do I could see this differently, though she'd still be a horrible person. However, he was clearly going to change his mind and once she told him to get back into that car and do it I feel that sealed the deal in terms of guilt. The defense is that she has mental problems, was on a new anti-depressant, wanted to get sympathy from people for having a bf who killed himself,etc.

Do people think a guilty verdict was warranted here? If you do, what punishment should she receive? Like I said the maximum seems to be 20 years. I'm doubting she will get that much time.

Not sure if 20 years is the right punishment(if she gets that), as iirc people have received less for more severe murder charges, but screw her, she's guilty.

And before you start, Surt, no I'm not just saying that because she's a Trump supporter, just a shitty human being in general.

Doubt she'll get anywhere near the maximum.

This is a sticky situation. She definately seems like a horrible person. But the concept behind the rule of law is individual determinism.. You tell someone to jump off a bridge and they do it, that's supposed to be on the person who jumped.

Still, this IS Mass we're talking about. If any state was going to hand out such a verdict, they'd be top of the list.

But now that the verdict is in it will set a precedent for alll sorts of "guilt by influence" cases.. Should be interesting.

Having only partially read about the story, how is she a horrible person guys?

Originally posted by Adam Grimes
Having only partially read about the story, how is she a horrible person guys?

She encouraged him to go through with it, didn't tell him to stop, as he was doing it, and when he had second thoughts mid way through, pressured him to finish the job.

That and something about being a drama queen who wanted the sympathy of a suicide boo for herself, but no idea where that's from (The siezed text messages, I assume.)

At the end, it says she texted his phone for a month after he died.

I wonder if she thought he was faking it? Either that, or something's not quite right in her head (And a shrink did testify her drugs probably intoxicated her to the point of being unable to form intent), in which case this is a pretty bad verdict..

Guilty, but 20 years is too much.

I think 10-20 years is fair.

Originally posted by Adam Grimes
Having only partially read about the story, how is she a horrible person guys?

Some of the texts she sent are very disturbing:

Carter: "So are you sure you don't wanna [kill yourself] tonight?"
Roy: "What do you mean am I sure?"
Carter: "Like, are you definitely not doing it tonight?"
Roy: "Idk yet I'll let you know"
Carter: "Because I'll stay up with you if you wanna do
it tonight"
Roy: " Another day wouldn't hurt"
Carter: "You can't keep pushing it off, tho, that's all you keep doing"

That isn't even the worst of it, these are a series of texts that were sent over a period of 9 days:

Carter: "You're gonna have to prove me wrong because I just don't think you really want this. You just keeps pushing it off to another night and say you'll do it but you never do"
---
Carter: "SEE THAT'S WHAT I MEAN. YOU KEEP PUSHING IT OFF! You just said you were gonna do it tonight and now you're saying eventually. . . ."
---
Carter: "But I bet you're gonna be like 'oh, it didn't work because I didn't tape the tube right or something like that' . . . I bet you're gonna say an excuse like that"
---
Carter: "Do you have the generator?"
Roy: "not yet lol"
Carter: "WELL WHEN ARE YOU GETTING IT"
---
Carter: "You better not be bull sh*ting me and saying you're gonna do this and then purposely get caught"

It just gets more disturbing after that, where she talks about how she feels his parents have recognized they can't help him and will accept his suicide.

It seems like she manipulated her boyfriend into killing himself in order to bask in all the attention and sympathy she thought she would get. IMO that makes her a psychopath.

What a bizarre conversation. She's acting like he's late getting groceries or something.

Definitely sounds like 20 years is perfectly fair.

Originally posted by BackFire
What a bizarre conversation. She's acting like he's late getting groceries or something.

Definitely sounds like 20 years is perfectly fair.

I had similar thoughts. It's almost like a wife nagging her husband about when he is going to clean out the gutters.