Teen Faces Charges For Encouraging Friend To Commit Suicide: Cops
100 replies, posted
This world is going to shit
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47233381]Yeah that would actually be murder.
I just don't see equating speech from a completely different location with the physical act of killing.[/QUOTE]
It may not be the same as a physical action but (at least in this case) it had the same result. It'd be one thing if he mentioned once that he was going to kill himself and she offhandedly told him "Oh yeah sure you should," but she did it [I]repeatedly,[/I] fully knowing what she was doing. She went truly beyond the pale when she convinced him to commit suicide even AFTER he realized he was scared of dying.
I'm not sure how the legal system will view it, but I'm of the opinion that she is ABSOLUTELY guilty of a crime and that while she may not have physically killed him, her nonstop coercion might as well have. That might not be murder but it's damn close.
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;47233299]So I can push someone off a bridge and argue that they were probably going to jump anyway? I mean it's on you to prove that they weren't, right?[/QUOTE]
It would reflect this case more if you said they pressured this hypothetical person to jump off the bridge.
[QUOTE=AlexConnor;47232872]Damn straight this isn't manslaughter.
Murder charge all the way.[/QUOTE]
But she did not kill anyone. Roy killed himself. Roy chose to listen to her and continue with his actions to end his own life. It was Roy's decision. Judge these situations with logic, not emotion.
[QUOTE=Xubs;47232893]When you encourage, suggest, or solicit suicide out of someone who might not have done it otherwise, you are the agent that caused their death, not themselves.[/QUOTE]
How do you know he wouldn't have done it otherwise? The fact he did do it, despite being pressured into it, suggests he would have. No sane rational being would end their own life because someone told them to.
[QUOTE=Xubs;47232893]you are the agent that caused their death, not themselves.[/QUOTE]
Placing full blame on someone other than the person that killed themselves is baffling. I cannot fathom how anyone in their sound mind could think this way.
[QUOTE]Carter is free on $2,500 bail[/QUOTE]
at least sentence her to a mental health facility instead of just letting her go!
[QUOTE=sasherz;47233742]
How do you know he wouldn't have done it otherwise? The fact he did do it, despite being pressured into it, suggests he would have. No sane rational being would end their own life because someone told them to.
Placing full blame on someone other than the person that killed themselves is baffling. I cannot fathom how anyone in their sound mind could think this way.[/QUOTE]
[I]please [/I]read the article
[QUOTE]A police report obtained by the Chronicle said, “Not only did Conrad tell Carter in several of his texts prior to his death that [B]he was scared and didn’t want to leave his family, she continued to encourage him to take his own life[/B], and when he actually started to carry out the act, [B]he got scared again and exited his truck, but instead of telling him to stay out of the truck ... Carter told him to ‘get back in.'"[/B][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=sasherz;47233742]But she did not kill anyone. Roy killed himself. Roy chose to listen to her and continue with his actions to end his own life. It was Roy's decision. Judge these situations with logic, not emotion.[/QUOTE]
I would assume that that last text from her was pretty much the last straw that confirmed his desire to die. I mean, it's not like everyone has the perfect will to easily blow off that kind of pressure.
[QUOTE=sasherz;47233742]How do you know he wouldn't have done it otherwise? The fact he did do it, despite being pressured into it, suggests he would have. No sane rational being would end their own life because someone told them to.[/QUOTE]
To be fair, it's unlikely that he was feeling sane or rational to begin with considering that he was planning on killing himself.
[QUOTE=kidwithsword;47233380]Your claim is that telling a person to kill themselves is the same as the actual act of killing them.
I'm genuinely curious how you are making an absolute assertion about a person's intentions. Can you read her mind?
The amount of information in this article is miniscule. It's amazing how willing people are to have a kneejerk reaction to a few sentences on the Internet.[/QUOTE]
Dumbing it down to just "telling someone to kill themselves" is incorrect.
Coercing someone to actually kill themselves as someone that the victim trusts, to the point where on multiple occassions they would not have done so and you were aware of that, is killing someone. You force them to do the act, but you were ultimately the driving force, forming the act, and you did so knowingly, as this girl has clearly done by worrying about consequences during the act's process., forming the intention.
Trying to assume that this was a spur of the moment thing is ridiculous, the level of coercion mentioned and the time frame does not demonstrate this idea in the slightest.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47233381]Yeah that would actually be murder.
I just don't see equating speech from a completely different location with the physical act of killing.[/QUOTE]
Speech is as much of a dangerous act as any, for example there are reports of the US Government trying to blackmail Martin Luther King into committing suicide, is that not attempted murder, to try and coerce someone through whatever means to die when they would not have without your malicious action.
[QUOTE=sasherz;47233742]It was Roy's decision. Judge these situations with logic, not emotion.
No sane rational being would end their own life because someone told them to.[/QUOTE]
We can judge this situation with logic, but the decision to take your own life strikes me as an emotional one, not a logical one. Speaking as someone who has experienced mild depression and has legitimately considered suicide in the past, the mindset you have at the time is profoundly different than you might think. Emotion can be a strong motivator, and seeing as this guy was in a very vulnerable state, her decision to goad him into actually committing to the action is reprehensible, and she ABSOLUTELY should take (at least some of) the blame. It's entirely possible he might have committed suicide regardless, but her reinforcement of his suicidal tendencies might very well have pushed him over the edge, whereas if she had chosen to try and get him to seek help, he might still be alive.
I realize that's a lot of "yeah but what ifs," but sometimes it's worth looking at these situations from a hypothetical and emotional standpoint, as well as a logical one.
[QUOTE=Sableye;47233267]Last I checked telling someone to kill themselves does not make you responsible for someone else's actions. Place this in another context where she said that in anger to his face then he did it, is that still manslaughter, she cannot and should not be held responsible for his actions here[/QUOTE]
Telling someone to "fuck off and die" or whatever is not on the same level of coolly persuading someone to commit the act as a friend of theirs that they trust. Do you see the malicious intent here? The intent is what makes it murder, as well as the acts being performed over a longer time frame and repeated attempts being made.
[QUOTE=Coment;47233864][I]please [/I]read the article[/QUOTE]
I did read the article. I also didn't see any text messages. This suggests the exact logs are not available to the public as of yet. This means the only source of those statements that this particular detail of the story was based on the prosecution's press statements. Hearing the story from one side and making your decision on the story's facts from one side is foolish. There could be a whole different context to this that we are not even aware of.
[QUOTE=JeanLuc761;47233896]We can judge this situation with logic, but the decision to take your own life strikes me as an emotional one, not a logical one. [/QUOTE]
Roy's decision was emotional, but our judgement must be logical. We can not convict Carter of manslaughter because we are upset with her actions and simply want to find a charge that seems like it fits based on a loose interpretation of it mixed with an emotional bias.
[QUOTE=JeanLuc761;47233896] Speaking as someone who has experienced mild depression and has legitimately considered suicide in the past, the mindset you have at the time is profoundly different than you might think. [/QUOTE]
I was in a similar to position to you and know the mindset you speak of. The only reason I didn't kill myself wasn't because I wasn't motivated to. It was because I decided that the factors that were encouraging me to kill myself were not a valid reason to do so.
[QUOTE=JeanLuc761;47233896]Emotion can be a strong motivator, and seeing as this guy was in a very vulnerable state, her decision to goad him into actually committing to the action is reprehensible, and she ABSOLUTELY should take (at least some of) the blame.[/QUOTE]
I don't deny she isn't in some way responsible for his death or that people in his state are vulnerable to suggestion. I don't think she should be fully responsible, however, which is what a murder charge or manslaughter charge implies. I'm interested to hear the technicality of that charge argued in court, which will be what the trial is mostly about.
what a piece of shit
i hope she spends time in jail and/or receives severe consequence.
[QUOTE=sasherz;47233927]I did read the article. I also didn't see any text messages. This suggests the exact logs are not available to the public as of yet. This means the only source of those statements that this particular detail of the story was based on the prosecution's press statements. Hearing the story from one side and making your decision on the story's facts from one side is foolish. There could be a whole different context to this that we are not even aware of.[/QUOTE]
well, if the texts are real then i don't think there is any context that would make her not deserving of some punishment unless she actually didn't send them, then whoever sent them deserves punishment of some sort
[QUOTE=sasherz;47233927]I did read the article. I also didn't see any text messages. This suggests the exact logs are not available to the public as of yet. This means the only source of those statements that this particular detail of the story was based on the prosecution's press statements. Hearing the story from one side and making your decision on the story's facts from one side is foolish. There could be a whole different context to this that we are not even aware of.[/QUOTE]
There's little reason to suspect the prosecution is lying about text messages that demonstrate persuading him to die, particularly when it is mentioned that they were persistent. We're talking about text messages, not eye witness accounts, the evidence is objective as all fuck.
This case looks rather open-and-shut as is.
[QUOTE=eurocracy;47233967]There's little reason to suspect the prosecution is lying about text messages that demonstrate persuading him to die, particularly when it is mentioned that they were persistent. We're talking about text messages, not eye witness accounts, the evidence is objective as all fuck.[/QUOTE]
My point wasn't that they are lying, more that we aren't given the evidence to judge for ourselves. We are given an opinionated view of the evidence by two parties motivated to convince people that Carter is a sweet-talking sociopath.
Personally, I can't think of many plausible situations to the facts presented to me, but that doesn't really matter, since it's not my issue with this case.
[QUOTE=eurocracy;47233967]This case looks rather open-and-shut as is.[/QUOTE]
The case would be open-and-shut if manslaughter was universally agreed upon as fitting this situation from a technical standpoint. This issue will likely be the focus of the trial.
[QUOTE=eurocracy;47233926]Telling someone to "fuck off and die" or whatever is not on the same level of coolly persuading someone to commit the act as a friend of theirs that they trust. Do you see the malicious intent here? The intent is what makes it murder, as well as the acts being performed over a longer time frame and repeated attempts being made.[/QUOTE]
Without a doubt she should be partly held responsible from a moral standpoint. I don't think any sane person in this thread will deny that. The issue I hold and those with similar positions to me hold is the technicality of calling Carter's actions manlaughter, as well as the correctness of equating her actions to physically killing someone.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47231774]It's not manslaughter, or murder. You cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Roy wouldn't have done it anyway, and goading via text is not actual coercion. You can't prove that Carter actually [I]caused[/I] anything.
I don't buy that any text messages or IMs can conclusively cause anything. They were obviously a factor, but I think it's a little ridiculous to lump sending texts in with accidentally killing somebody because you were recklessly firing a gun in public (or any other typical example of manslaughter).
There should be some consequences, but I don't think you can make a real case for murder or manslaughter when Carter didn't physically cause Roy's death. Roy caused Roy's death. I hate to defend an obviously shitty person, but it also doesn't speak very highly of Roy to claim in a court of law "But for these text messages, Roy would still be alive".[/QUOTE]
Yes because words have no effect on anyone ever, especially not those in unstable mental states. What if it was a phone call, would that make it more impactful? How about being their in person? Is it that "oh, it's a text message, those aren't serious" because to a lot of people that's their main communication method.
Moreover, even if you don't agree that her text messages had an influence on him killing himself, what of the other side? That she knew he was planning to commit suicide and took no action to stop him, either directly or indirectly, despite having several chances. What of that?
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47233381]Yeah that would actually be murder.
I just don't see equating speech from a completely different location with the physical act of killing.[/QUOTE]
OK, so if I kidnap someone's child and text them (with an image for proof) that either they kill themselves or I'll kill their kid, I wouldn't in any way responsible (for their death) if they did indeed kill themselves?
[editline]1st March 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Skerion;47231622]It would probably be more fitting to describe her as cruel than dumb.[/QUOTE]
Both really. Leaving a digital trail behind is dumb, encouraging a mentally vulnerable person to kill themselves is cruel.
He got out and she texted him to get back in.. 'nuff said. Texts carry a lotta wait to a teenager.
I personally think it's an assisted suicide. Did she tell him to get back in the car or did she force him in?
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47233381]Yeah that would actually be murder.
I just don't see equating speech from a completely different location with the physical act of killing.[/QUOTE]
FYI saying something that can cause immediate harm to people has been illegal for a while.
You know the whole "Yelling fire in a theater" interpretation of the first amendment. The court ruling is simply following the precedent set by prior courts.
You know what's really illogical? How people tend to arbitrarily put harm caused by words on a lower level than harm caused by force even when intent is equally malicious and the harm just as bad.
[QUOTE=Octopod;47234277]I personally think it's an assisted suicide. Did she tell him to get back in the car or did she force him in?[/QUOTE]
It's no longer assisted suicide when the suicidal person decides against it and is then coerced back into it. That is murder
[QUOTE=Mingebox;47234367]You know what's really illogical? How people tend to arbitrarily put harm caused by words on a lower level than harm caused by force even when intent is equally malicious and the harm just as bad.[/QUOTE]
Mental harm I would argue can be far worse in the long run even; modern medicine tends to be rather good about healing the body, the mind not so much. Though I guess it isn't surprising considering how much the US tends to ignore mental health in general.
[QUOTE=DaMastez;47234417]Mental harm I would argue can be far worse in the long run even; modern medicine tends to be rather good about healing the body, the mind not so much. Though I guess it isn't surprising considering how much the US tends to ignore mental health in general.[/QUOTE]
I'd argue most of the actual "harm" caused by physical violence is the emotional damage anyway.
[QUOTE=Mingebox;47234429]I'd argue most of the actual "harm" caused by physical violence is the emotional damage anyway.[/QUOTE]
depends on the case, imo. if some dudes got in a bar fight and one got cut on the arm, unless it was something super major i don't think that he'll be too emotionally damaged
I looked a bit into this and supposedly they were boyfriend/girlfriend. After his death she took up on social media to fish for condolences from people. This is absolutely horrific.
I can actually think of one or two reasons in which it'd be okay to help someone accept suicidal thoughts, but those are very, very extreme, inescapable cases, like the inability to ever be re-accepted into society. I don't buy that this was an extreme, inescapable case. Help could have been given. This girl is pretty terrible. I wish she could be studied.
[QUOTE=wauterboi;47236222]I can actually think of one or two reasons in which it'd be okay to help someone accept suicidal thoughts, but those are very, very extreme, inescapable cases, like the inability to ever be re-accepted into society. I don't buy that this was an extreme, inescapable case. Help could have been given. This girl is pretty terrible. I wish she could be studied.[/QUOTE]
Yah bud it's really never okay to encourage anyone to commit suicide.
Turning a deaf ear to someone who is contemplating suicide is pretty despicable on its own. Actively encouraging them to go through with it is fucking abhorrent.
I hope she gets tried for murder. Her intent should be plain enough for all to see given the evidence.
If I'm walking down the street and some guy is on the roof, as if he's contemplating jumping, and I yell "Jump!" did I commit manslaughter? No. Whatever else I might be guilty of, including being an asshole for yelling that, I did not kill this guy.
I see this woman the same way. She's evil at heart, that much is obvious. I would say callous but there does appear to be a malicious intent there too. However, who killed this guy? He killed himself. It's a disrespect to him to suggest he had no control, that he had no responsibility.
[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;47237915]If I'm walking down the street and some guy is on the roof, as if he's contemplating jumping, and I yell "Jump!" did I commit manslaughter? No. Whatever else I might be guilty of, including being an asshole for yelling that, I did not kill this guy.
I see this woman the same way. She's evil at heart, that much is obvious. I would say callous but there does appear to be a malicious intent there too. However, who killed this guy? He killed himself. It's a disrespect to him to suggest he had no control, that he had no responsibility.[/QUOTE]
There's something you, along with a LOT of people in this thread, are missing.
This isn't telling someone who's on a ledge to jump, this is watching someone get down from that ledge and calling him chickenshit and demanding he still jump. That's not 'being an asshole', that's straight up murder.
[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;47237915]If I'm walking down the street and some guy is on the roof, as if he's contemplating jumping, and I yell "Jump!" did I commit manslaughter? No. Whatever else I might be guilty of, including being an asshole for yelling that, I did not kill this guy.
I see this woman the same way. She's evil at heart, that much is obvious. I would say callous but there does appear to be a malicious intent there too. However, who killed this guy? He killed himself. It's a disrespect to him to suggest he had no control, that he had no responsibility.[/QUOTE]
a more-apt analogy would be if you went to the roof of the building and saw your girlfriend there about to jump, then whispered to her to do it continually until she jumped
[editline]1st March 2015[/editline]
if some random person sent him a text saying "kill urself" and he did then you'd be right, but that is not at all what happened
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.