Ok.
Reckless conduct? Hmm.In Massachusetts, involuntary manslaughter occurs when someone unintentionally causes the death of another person, when the defendant was engaging in some type of reckless conduct or while committing a serious battery upon another person.
Physician-assisted suicide is already questionable depending upon where you live. When you're not a physician and you're some random teenage girl, that's a pretty fucking reckless decision made with some very inside info. This isn't an offhand comment that's the bar room equivalent of "Go fuck off and die" nor is this Chuckie Manson listening to the White Album and interpreting it as an invite to start a race war.Michelle Carter and then 16-year-old Conrad Roy met one another in Florida in 2012 while each had been visiting relatives. The teenagers rarely saw each other later, but mostly exchanged text messages and emails. According to the court documents, Conrad Roy had been abused at home and tried to kill himself in October 2012 after being despondent when his parents divorced. After learning that he was planning to kill himself she repeatedly discouraged him from committing suicide in 2012 and 2014 and encouraged him to "get professional help". However, her attitude changed in July 2014, when she started thinking that it would be a "good thing to help him die."
A bit more.
Is there a high degree of likelihood that someone who tried to kill himself before and had been thinking about it again would actually follow through with enough coaxing from someone he probably cared about a great deal?What is “wanton or reckless conduct”? Generally, it is conduct which creates a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm will result to another person.
Sounds like it meets all three of those items. You will note there's nothing there which says the accused must have physically assaulted the victim or even be in the same general vicinity when it occurs. Her defense was that condition #1 was without merit because those communications were protected under the first amendment. It was also mentioned that she'd been on some meds which may have affected her mental condition. Both those excuses weren't bought, and rightly so. If you're 100% absolved of any legal culpability as long as you only use words, then it's open season on fucking old people out of their retirement plans through bogus financial advice.In order to obtain a conviction of Involuntary Manslaughter, the prosecution must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, the following legal elements:
That the defendant caused an unlawful, while unintentional, killing. In other words, there was no legal justification for the killing (such as self-defense,) and the defendant intended to commit the act or conduct that ultimately caused the death. However, the prosecution does not need to prove that the defendant intended to cause the death that resulted from his conduct;
That the victim’s death was caused by wanton or reckless conduct, meaning that the defendant's actions created a high degree of likelihood that substantial and serious harm would result to another person; and
The wanton or reckless conduct that the defendant engaged in, in fact caused the victim’s death.
Once #1 is done, you move on to the question of would he have killed himself without her texts? Maybe, maybe not. But her texts certainly created a higher, substantial, and serious threat to his already unstable mental state. The third one follows pretty easily from the first two. What part of the statute has not been met?