In the last message Carter sent to Roy she wrote, “The time is right and you are ready … just do it babe.”
A woman from Massachusetts could face up to 20 years for abetment to suicide after a dozen text messages that she sent as a 17-year-old teen to her boyfriend ended up in him committing suicide.
According to a Massachusetts Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz, Michelle Carter had asked her boyfriend Conrad Roy III to get inside a truck filled with toxic gas, which he obeyed causing his death.
The sentencing will be announced on Thursday after she was found guilty in June.
According to the court ruling, Carter was seventeen when her 18-year-old boyfriend Roy was found dead due to carbon monoxide poisoning in July 2014.
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In the last message Carter sent to Roy she wrote, “The time is right and you are ready … just do it babe.”
The incident and the trial following the arrest of Carter was one of the trending topics on social media as the language she used to persuade her boyfriend to commit suicide was intensely persuasive.
“You can’t think about it. You just have to do it. You said you were gonna do it. Like I don’t get why you aren’t,” Carter wrote in one of the text messages.
According to Carter’s lawyer, Joseph Cataldo, Roy had made up his mind to commit suicide and Carter, after knowing about the intention, had tried to dissuade him from the act but she failed to convince Roy and eventually had to agree to his plan.
The lawyer also said that Carter had advised Roy to get the help of a psychologist. Pointing that Carter was just using her right to free speech protected by the First Amendment, Cataldo tried proving Carter is innocent.
Announcing the sentence, the judge said that the message that Carter wrote moments before Roy took his own life “get back in” suggested that she forced him into death after he felt afraid when entering the truck filling carbon monoxide.
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The judge attributed those words as “wanton and reckless conduct” under the manslaughter statute.
The two teens first met during a family vacation in 2012 and after that their relationship built around text messages. Both Carter and Roy were facing acute signs of depression with Carter treated for anorexia and Roy for suicide tendency.
The request of Roy’s aunt for sentencing Carter for 20 years will be heard by the judge on Thursday. On the other hand, Carter’s father who was present during the hearing said his daughter made a very tragic mistake and request the court for probation and continued counseling.
Matthew Segal, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, had earlier said that no law exists as of now in the State of Massachusetts to make one accountable for encouraging or persuading someone to commit suicide. And the sentencing of Carter for a crime that she did as a teenager exceeds the limits of criminal laws and is a violation of free speech.
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“This conviction exceeds the limits of our criminal laws and violates free speech protections guaranteed by the Massachusetts and U.S. Constitutions. The implications of this conviction go far beyond the tragic circumstances of Mr. Roy’s death. If allowed to stand, Ms. Carter’s conviction could chill important and worthwhile end-of-life discussions between loved ones across the Commonwealth,” Segal said in a statement released after the conviction.
An opinion piece that appeared in New York Times by Robby Soave said, “What Ms. Carter said to Mr. Roy was outrageous. Sending her to prison on a possible 20-year sentence is both outrageous and unjust.”