“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”
The founding fathers of this nation, the wise and beautiful souls that they were, believed that our right to free speech — a freedom which we often take for granted due to the fact that is has become common sense — was so precious that they lovingly placed it at the top of the Bill of Rights.
Can we even begin to fathom the importance of that moment? These men could have put anything, within reason, at the very beginning of that document. James Madison, the dedicated author, could have decided that stating the Third Amendment — “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house…” — looked more visually appealing or was more important to him and stuck that at the top.
But no, the founders of this nation decided that our right to say and write what we feel (like I am doing at this moment) needed to be protected, especially from the power of the government and other individuals. Unfortunately — or not, depending on the situation — those brilliant minds left this amendment vaguely worded, leaving us with more questions than answers. How far does this right go? What can I say? What can I threaten? What, exactly, is slander? And libel?
And, the most important question at the moment, can a girl be protected from accusations of involuntary manslaughter because she was simply exercising her First Amendment rights?
Michelle Carter, as many have heard because of the articles on their Facebook newsfeeds, pressured her boyfriend Conrad Roy III into committing suicide in July of 2014. Her name has blown up a year later due to the fact that some incriminating, awful texts have been brought to the surface.
Carter, who was 17 at the time, sent numerous texts telling Roy that he should simply end it all when she learned that he wanted to end his life.
“There isn’t anything anyone can do to save you, not even yourself,” she wrote in one message.
She even told him when, where and how to commit suicide. When Roy showed concerns and thoughts of backing out, Carter accused him of never being able to make up his mind and continued to pester him to do it. She was even on the phone with Roy when he eventually killed himself, forcing him to get back in his truck with a generator running after he admitted to being scared of dying. He was found in a parking lot the next morning, and Carter pretended to have no idea about where he was.
After Roy’s death, Carter then proceeded to organize a fundraising tournament in his honor. She played the part of the grieving girlfriend while simultaneously covering her tracks. When she eventually realized that the police can go through deleted messages, especially in the case of a suicide, she admitted to one friend “(If the police) read my messages with him, I’m done … I can go to jail.”
Carter’s attorney, Joseph P. Cataldo, claims that the involuntary manslaughter charges she is facing in a juvenile court in Massachusetts should be dropped because those messages are protected under the First Amendment. She was just a simple, “young, impressionable girl,” (a quote from Cataldo in the South Coast Today) who was convinced into pressuring her boyfriend to commit suicide (because it is obviously the fault of the person reaching out for help). She has rights, and she did not step outside of them.
I am reminded of my wise AP Government teacher in high school who, one day in class, put up a simple quote on the board from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr:
“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”   Â
Carter has rights, yes, but so did Roy. There’s a delicate balance of overlapping rights which one needs to take into consideration every time a case like this comes up. The founding fathers could not have seen this coming. They never imagined that a young sociopath would one day hide behind her right of speech in order to bully one of the people who trusted her the most while he was in a dark place. It’s shameful and disgusting, and James Madison is turning over in his grave.
Carter’s court date, and the decision concerning her future, is scheduled for Oct. 2, 2015.
If you need help, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). There is someone available to talk 24/7.
Rules of Conduct
Welcome to the discussion.
Or, use your facebook account:
2 comments:
Anonymous Commenter posted at 11:53 pm on Mon, Sep 7, 2015.
To say: "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins" is not exactly correct. Regardless, if your going to make the analogy, remind me which right of Roy's did Michelle violate?
Anonymous Commenter posted at 2:50 pm on Sun, Sep 6, 2015.
I want to emphasize that everything I saw here is just for argument's sake.
If I told you to go kill yourself for your misunderstanding of the First Amendment, and you did so, would I be responsible for that in any way? Certainly not. First, comments on the internet are viewed less seriously than face-to-face speech, my speech is not material "assistance" to your self-inflicted harm, and people cannot possibly be expected to be responsible for how a listener takes their speech in reasonable circumstances. Heck, even the Collegiate Times will not be held responsible for permitting my comment to be communicated to you, since they have absolute immunity from the speech of their commenters (by an act of Congress). This girl's intent alone is not enough to make it a crime, and spouting generalities about suicide that a reasonable listener has probably already heard or been exposed to merely by absorbing media can't be material assistance.
But how about another situation, in which I, with a heavy heart, tell you how my great-great-uncle killed himself. I tell you rather many details about the manner in which he executed the deed and you use that information to kill yourself. Surely I'm not culpable for that either, since there is no intent. There's no knowledge that what I'm saying could make a reasonable listener kill themselves, even if the specific details might amount to material assistance in that the average listener might not be aware of that method of suicide.
The thrust of all this should be that "speech is not equivalent to violence."
Massachusetts defines involuntary manslaughter
"1) An unlawful killing that was unintentionally caused as the result of the defendants' wanton or reckless conduct;
or
2) An unlawful killing that resulted during the commission of a dangerous battery by a defendant."
Throw out (2) because we're dealing with speech. And in (1), the actually conduct has to be the proximate cause of death. Unless speaking to a person is conduct that reasonably could cause them physical harm, no speech is going to rise to the level of wanton conduct. The reckless conduct is sitting in a running vehicle in an enclosed space.
Beyond the First Amendment issue (since people love to try to criminalize speech at the same time as saying they love free speech), this poses a real issue of notification of illegality under the law. It's gross that the DA is trying to take "involuntary manslaughter" and fit "suicide" into that. Worse, speech associated with suicide to that. There are states that explicitly criminalize assistance of suicide, and I don't think Massachusetts is one of those, but even those states will run into the First Amendment when it comes to anything aside from material assistance and physical conduct that assists suicide. (E.g. Minnesota, which has held that its state statute criminalizing "encouraging" suicide is overbroad and thus unconstitutional. It is difficult to characterize encouraging suicide as "incitement" since the timing is so unpredictable; I suppose depending on the circumstances it might be imminent, but that's a difficult needle to thread, prosecutorially.)