Guilty Verdict for Young Woman Who Urged Friend to Kill Himself

[Sacrophagus]

Agreed, bullying stems from insecurities the bully has. They have deep problems in their life, and idiotically take this road as it presents them an opportunity to have some control and exercise some power. They go scavenging like hyenas for someone weaker than them and prey on the satisfaction derived from harming them.
Talk about the most stupid coping mechanism ever.

That young woman needs to be put in the asylum. **Hits the gavel**

 

[ceecee]

Here are a couple of especially telling statements

"I thought you were actually gonna do this but now you've just made me feel played and just stupid."

And the most telling,

"Did you delete the messages?"

Demonstrating comprehension that there could be negative ramifications for herself if she got caught.

Right, I think this played a big role in the trial. But it's crazy to see how many people are turning her into the victim in this crime.

 

[Typh0n]

I think she should have been charged with neglect, not manslaughter. She didn't actually commit any violence herself - though what she did was clearly wrong IMO - and you can't be charged with manslaughter if you haven't actually commited the violence yourself.

It's a mistake to let the government criminalize speech, even stupid and offensive speech. This is an attempt to curb jerkish behavior and the government will inevitably abuse this power in the future. What if someone tells Kim Jong Eun to go jump off a bridge or commit hari-kari; is that going to be illegal now?

I don't think this kind of thing should be protected under free speech. The problem wasn't her speech itself. It isn't the content of what she said, rather, the fact that she incited someone into violence. It's the same logic as with verbal harassment: verbal harassment should isn't protected under free speech, because it isn't the content of what is being said that is wrong. Insulting someone you don't know and who won't read or hear your words like Kim Jon Un is different, but the problem with harassment is the fact it invades someone else's psychological boundries. This too was an act that transgressed psychological boundries.

 

[hjgbujhghg]

Her boyfriend was spamming her with his suicidal thoughts for a very long time. In the past she had tried to talk him out of his plans, but he kept on threatening her with committing suicide. He created an extreme emotional preassure on a young and probably a vulnerable girl, he pushed he to an emotional edge. Such preassure would be too much to deal with for most of the adults, not talking about a teenage girl.

The girl her self has suffered from depression and was hospitalized. She took antidepressants and had her own complicated emotional issues. She clearly wasn't a psychologically stable person. Perhaps she had thought about suicide herself and reached the point of thinking that it might be the right solution for someone who is in a long term emotional pain. Suicide is never a real option, but for a disturbed mind that had been pushed towards the edge, perhaps it seemed like a true liberation of her boyfriend's pain.

The guy himself has thought about suicide for a long time and decided to do so, not under the influence of drugs, violance or other similar things. She didn't come up with it, she didn't tell him he should do it just out of the thin air. The boy himself was the iniciator of the whole idea, she was not.

To me it seems like the government wants to scare teenage kids who use the internet for bullying and threatening others. It wants to show them what can happen if things go to far and to assert their power into the area in which clearly, they have no power over.

The parents of the boy must have suffered a true trauma. They were unable to help him, to save him and the guilt is simply too much to handle. They needed someone to point their finger at.

 

[Jaguar]

They needed someone to point their finger at.

Its name is Celexa.

The toxicology screen found no alcohol or illicit drugs in Roy's system. There was evidence of an antihistamine and the antidepressant Celexa in his bloodstream.

 

[Mole]

I am simply reminded of one of my best friends from college who took his life in the same way around five years ago and wishing I could have known to do something that could have helped or prevented it.

Yes, I had a good friend who killed himself. It left me sad and angry. He wrote a sixteen page suicide note, and as I read it I could hear his voice as we sat up late at night discussing philosophy. The note said he was tired of life, and he had some reason, his first wife and two children were killed in a car accident, and his second wife left him, and he lost his political position on the local council. And I believe he may have been addicted to propofol. He was an extraordinary human being. He gained a doctorate in Physics from MIT, made an invention that was purchased by the military for an extravagant sum, and gained an honours degree in Law from the Australian National University. And he was generous and helpful. It is not something you really get over.

 

[great_bay]

Mole, you are crazy. I would not be surprised if you wanted to manipulate people into committing suicide.

 

[Typh0n]

Mole, you are crazy. I would not be surprised if you wanted to manipulate people into committing suicide.

That's not very nice.

 

[Dreamer]

Mole, you are crazy. I would not be surprised if you wanted to manipulate people into committing suicide.

How does one come to such conclusion of someone's character? I must be missing context here.

 

[Mole]

How does one come to such conclusion of someone's character? I must be missing context here.

Perhaps great_bay is just a good judge of character.

 

[Wunjo]

I might want to have a say in this.

The topic is, surely interesting. I will have a couple of questions. Firstly, if the person in question can be this easily convinced to kill himself, taking such an important decision by the push (not coercion) of an external stimuli, does his life belong to himself in the first place? If you can't take responsibility for your suicide, if you are convinced to do it, how much is the value that you give to your life anyway? Second, or rather third, in this occasion, if you do lack an internal drive to suicide and/or value your life enough not to commit it, you can not be persuaded to kill yourself. Self destruction is very much like a flower, in order for it to grow, there must be a seed in the first place. I am not saying that the gardener did not water the seed by her own responsibility, I am just stating out the possibility that the same seed would still grow by the personal hails and thunders of an individuals life.

It's a pity to see that if the person had proper guidance & counselling, this might have never happened.

Words do have power, yes. Words do have power over everyone. Yet, except extreme cases, which I concur this is not, there is no external manipulation of objects, driving someone to suicide or huge amounts of gaslighting as far as I can see, you are the one who gets to decide that which words should have power over you or not. Ms. Carter could have saved the person who commited suicide, she did not. The judge says that “He breaks that chain of self-causation by exiting the vehicle, he takes himself out of that toxic environment that it has become.” For a moment, yes, he is right. He is, definitely right. Yet, how much this decision can be reliable if he returned back in the car with a single command to kill himself? In this, the situation wraps itself into a pickle, if his self worth is defined at the moment by what she said in that moment, he could have thought that "Even my friend wants me to die", yet still, considering his psychological distress, why should he fulfill the wish of a friend who wants him dead, for the gratification earned by it would cause him to perish? If the will to be alive was more profound in the person who commited suicide, Mr. Roy would be, I think, able to give a "No."

Is Ms. Carter criminally responsible for doing that? I suppose not.

Is she philosophically responsible? In that, I don't have a say. That's really much up to her own self.