Journal Article

Kill Me Through the Phone: The Legality of Encouraging Suicide in an Increasingly Digital World

Taylor, Sierra

2019

Overview

\"5 The following afternoon, on July 13, 2014, a local police officer found the dead body of Conrad Roy.6 During the investigation that ensued in the wake of Roy's suicide, local law enforcement reviewed Roy's electronic communications.7 Their findings caused officials to more closely examine his relationship with his girlfriend, seventeen-year-old Michelle Carter.8 The officials discovered that Carter and Roy met in 2011 and dated at various times in the three years that followed.9 The majority of this relationship and contact took place via text messages and cellphone conversations.10 The content of these electronic communications was of particular concern to the police.11 While Roy had a history of mental health issues and attempted suicides, Carter appeared to have exacerbated her boyfriend's problems by constantly encouraging Roy to kill himself.12 For example, in the days leading up to his death, Carter and Roy had brainstormed ideas for devices that could produce carbon monoxide.13 Carter had suggested that Roy \"Google ways to make it[,]\" and subsequently recommended using a generator.14 The next day, Carter sent Roy a text promising that she would stay up with him if he wanted to kill himself that night.15 When Roy responded that he wished to wait, Carter replied, \"You can't keep pushing it off. In a widely publicized decision,21 Judge Moniz explained that Roy was in fact responsible for his own death in the time period leading up to his suicide.22 Judge Moniz found that Roy, who struggled with mental health problems, \"took significant actions of his own towards\" ending his life.23 These actions included researching methods of suicide, securing a generator, obtaining a water pump, placing his truck in an unnoticeable area, and turning on the pump.24 However, Judge Moniz stressed that Roy \"br[oke] that chain of self-causation by exiting the vehicle. At that exact moment, Judge Moniz reasoned, Carter became responsible for Roy's life.26 Judge Moniz found that \"instructing Mr. Roy to get back in the truck constituted . . . wanton and reckless conduct by Ms. Carter,\" which created a situation where it was highly likely that substantial harm would befall Roy.27 The court found that Carter's instructions to \"get back in\" the truck created the circumstances that threatened Roy's life.28 The court held that, therefore, Carter had \"a duty to take reasonable steps to alleviate the risk,\" the failure of which can result in a charge of manslaughter under Massachusetts law.29 Judge Moniz found it damning that Carter took no such steps, asserting that \" [Carter] did not call the police or Mr. Roy's family. . . . she called no one. \"30 Instead, Carter simply listened to the sound of the motor and to Roy's coughs as her boyfriend died, obeying her instructions until his last breath.31 For these reasons, the court found that, \"Carter's actions, and also her failure to act, where she had a self-created duty to Mr. Roy since she had put him into that toxic environment, constituted . . . wanton and reckless conduct\" sufficient for a verdict of involuntary manslaughter.32 In February of 2019, the supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed Judge Moniz's decision without conditions or reservations.33 Michelle Carter appealed her conviction to the United States Supreme Court on July 8, 2019, but the certiorari petition was denied.34 This Note argues that the Massachusetts court overreached to criminalize Michelle Carter's conduct.

• Publisher: Brigham Young University, Reuben Clark Law School
• Subject: Carbon monoxide / Carter, Michelle / Criminal law / Criminalization / History / Judges & magistrates / Law / Manslaughter / Mental health / State court decisions / State laws / Suicides & suicide attempts