I believe that is slightly different because of legally binding obligations and the inability of the party to make their own choice.

That is to say, by law, the spouse is the legal next of kin with authority if something happens, not the parents. If there is no surviving spouse, the next of kin is legally the grown children and then the parents and then the siblings.

In this case the teen male was able to make his own choice, and did so.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. This is just stupid, if I tell you to jump of a bridge and you do it and die I'm being charged for murder? If I say youshould try drugs and 5 years later you die from an overdose and they charge me with murder? Everyone wants to blame everyone else for their problems,is there civil action being taken against this woman too? Its against the law to commit suicide but I don't know of anyone they have convicted of attempted murder of them selves.

I absolutely deny that. The concept of EVIL is based on magical belief. Nothing more or less. There should be no magical beliefs involved with legal proceedings.

As to this case, I don't think it's accurate to say that words were declared illegal. There is a long standing set of laws, which allow us to hold people responsible for influencing others to commit crimes, or cause injury to themselves or others, and those are the laws that this woman was convicted under.

But I also agree that our prison system has never been designed to actually perform any "repairs" to anyone we send there. As with most prison systems, since they are paid for by taxpayers who generally don't LIKE anyone who gets sent there, they are designed to be unpleasant, with the hope that people will naturally decide not to do anything to cause us to want to send them back there again. Putting a young girl who has been said to be mentally unstable herself in there, doesn't seem particularly useful. But I do support very much, the laws that she was convicted of breaking.

I'm sorry, I failed to stress my point sufficiently.

In both cases someone caused the death of another.
In Terri's case it was her husband and the courts words that allowed it.
In Michelle's case it was her words.

In Terri's case there was no crime assessed against her husband yet Michelle is being prosecuted for basically the same thing but did not directly kill Conrad.

Terri's husband said to the courts - "I want to kill my wife, do you allow me?". The courts said "oh okay, go ahead".
Michelle didn't ask for permission to suggest to Conrad that he take his own life so she goes to jail.

a little different because Terri was UNABLE to decide anything for herself and the next of kin then has legal authority to do it for her

These teens both could make their own decisions and neither had the legal authority to make the decisions for the other


Here is the rub though Tom

she did not CAUSE his death

maybe her words had some influence, but she put no gun to his head, she did not force him, he still caused his OWN death through his own choice

and the fact that they were both teens means it is quite possible that neither of their minds were working right

not his when he CAUSED his own death
not hers when she SUPPORTED his intentions with her words

but I still feel prison is the wrong place to put people over what they have SAID, and more a place for people who have actually DONE(physical action) something

I believe the 'crime' of speech should be , at worst, a civil crime

like, paying someone to commit a crime(solicitation)
or committing the crime themselves
or being involved in the planning of a crime with others(conspiracy)

Lots are in certain contexts.
Fire in a theater.
Online bullying.
Hatespeech.
Defamation, libel.
Fraud.
Apparently, calling someone by the wrong self identifying gender in some places.
Sexual harassment.


I'm not really sure what issue that is.
You title the tread "words as a crime?" then talk about a judge finding a woman guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and then you talk about age, then you talk about locking people up, and then you ask if that's productive.

So which issue are you torn over?
That words are a crime?
A judge finding a woman guilty without a jury?
The legal vagueness of "involuntary" and "manslaughter?"
The sentencing associated with a law?
Youths with access to cellphones? Youths making bad choices? Peer pressure and age?
Prison as a punishment? Prison as a means for producing something?


Maybe.
For all I know if she isn't sent away for 20 years she'll do the same thing to her next boyfriend.
For all I know she is attracted to and seeks out damaged boys who are leaning towards suicide and she pushes them over the edge.
For all I know she now wants to kill herself, will be stopped in prison, and instead will make license plates, producing something.
Or maybe she'll be killed in prison rather than living in a depressed state off her parents for the rest of her life, saving taxpayer money which can be used to house a more nefarious criminal.


I think that is why she was tried in a juvenile court.


That implies there is a remedy, the "sick" person is willing to be "cured," and it would be effective.
You really want to stick people with a history of influencing the behavior of others (a la Charles Manson, David Koresh) into a facility full of other people with mental issues listening to and doing what doctors (authority) is telling them?

Or are you suggesting something else? Like all judges now have to get a doctorate in psychology? Or we do away with judges and the legal system and just put mental health experts in charge?


Better start writing your congressman for the release of Charles Manson, then.

charles manson would be in the category of conspiracy

for logically laying out a plan to commit a crime with people he held authority over, who were isolated from the world and saw him as a leader

these were just two teens doing and saying illogical things,,,

Why would anyone want to write their congressman for the release of Charles Manson? Congress has no authority over the release of prisoners.

My point isn't the particulars of the case.
My point is the precedent of the law.

"You may go ahead and kill Terri"

Then the law says that you my not urge someone to kill themselves.

I sat on the edge of suicide, with gun in my hand.
The reason I did not kill myself is because I really didn't want to - or I would have. The choice was mine.

The only time someone else's suggestions to you are acted upon by you is when you agree to do them. The choice is always yours.

If suggestions are now a crime, then all suggestions can be considered a crime. A precedent that could be twisted, just like the precedent of court sanctioned murder.

Would this then mean that drug traffickers and mafia bosses shouldn't be charged or tried because people were killed by their suggestion?

in terris case, I dont consider her as having been 'killed' , nature took its course and the unnatural machines 'keeping her alive' were turned off

if they had given her a lethal dose of something, maybe then I would consider it 'killing' her.

I would consider those conspiracies

where through authority or duress(fear for their life or their loved ones lives), one is forcing others to commit crime

This is why

"TAUNTON, Mass. — For a case that had played out in thousands of text messages, what made Michelle Carter’s behavior a crime, a judge concluded, came in a single phone call. Just as her friend Conrad Roy III stepped out of the truck he had filled with lethal fumes, Ms. Carter told him over the phone to get back in the cab and then listened to him die without trying to help him.

That command, and Ms. Carter’s failure to help, said Judge Lawrence Moniz of Bristol County Juvenile Court, made her guilty of involuntary manslaughter in a case that had consumed New England, left two families destroyed and raised questions about the scope of legal responsibility. Ms. Carter, now 20, is to be sentenced Aug. 3 and faces up to 20 years in prison."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/suicide-texting-trial-michelle-carter-conrad-roy.html

ty

I understood the why. I just did not agree with it. I still feel it was his choice as she had no authority over him and held him under no duress to force him to do it if he did not want to and because I think its a slippery slope to start prosecuting people for what they have 'not done' outside of actual contractual obligations.

Words in general isn't a crime but it depends on the circumstance. Like said above crying fire in a crowded theater. That could cause injury and death.

This kid was obviously disturbed and she encouraged it and never got help. That is accessory to me

I think she was disturbed too, who should be held accountable for not getting her 'help'? Where would it end,,,,,