Robby Soave an associate editor at Reason magazine asked in the New York Times, can malicious speech constitute violence? No, but a recent court decision which found Michelle Carter guilty of
sending lethal text messages — is bound to confuse the issue.
Judge Lawrence Moniz, of Bristol County Juvenile
Court in southeastern Massachusetts, ruled that
Ms. Carter, 17 at the time of her crime, had committed involuntary manslaughter
by urging her depressed 18-year-old boyfriend, Conrad Roy III, to kill himself.
Mr. Roy had flirted with the idea for weeks, and Ms. Carter — after initially
telling him to seek counseling — seemed to warm to the idea, consistently
egging him on via
text: “The time is right and you’re ready, you just need to do it! You
can’t keep living this way. You just need to do it like you did last time and
not think about it and just do it babe.”
On July 12, 2014, Mr. Roy drove to a Kmart parking
lot and connected his truck to a water pump that released carbon monoxide. At one
point, sick from the fumes, he got out of the truck. Ms. Carter told him to
“get back in.” His body was found on July 13.
Ms. Carter also struggled with mental illness. Her
lawyers claimed antidepressant drugs influenced her behavior; though the
prosecution preferred to cast her as a callous narcissist who craved the
sympathy of her peers and believed a suicidal boyfriend would earn her a
popularity boost.
In either case, Ms. Carter’s conduct was morally
reprehensible. But — at least until today’s ruling — it was clearly legal.
While some states criminalize the act of convincing people to commit suicide,
Massachusetts has no such law. Moreover, speech that is reckless, hateful and
ill-willed nevertheless enjoys First Amendment protection. While the Supreme
Court has carved out narrowly
tailored exceptions for literal threats of violence and incitement to
lawless action, telling someone they should kill themselves is not the same as
holding a gun to their head and pulling the trigger. Nor is it akin to
threatening to kill the president, which is specifically prohibited by law —
and in any case, only considered a felony if done ”knowingly
and willfully.” (Merely expressing hope that the president dies isn’t
enough.)
Judge Moniz’s verdict is a stunning act of defiance
against this general principle. By finding Ms. Carter guilty of involuntary
manslaughter — rather than some lesser misdeed, such as bullying or harassment
— the court has dealt a blow to the constitutionally enshrined idea that speech
is not, itself, violence. That’s cause for concern.
“Mr. Roy’s death is a terrible tragedy, but it is
not a reason to stretch the boundaries of our criminal laws or abandon the
protections of our constitution,” wrote Matthew Segel, legal director of the
ACLU of Massachusetts, in a statement. “The implications of this conviction go
far beyond the tragic circumstances of Mr. Roy’s death. If allowed to stand,
Ms. Carter’s conviction could chill important and worthwhile end-of-life
discussions between loved ones across the Commonwealth.”
This one-off decision in juvenile court may not sway
legal precedent. But it will undoubtedly draw the attention of school officials
and police officers in the state of Massachusetts and negatively affect an area
of the law already suffering from authoritarian governmental overreach: teen
discipline.
For decades, efforts have been underway to
criminalize every obnoxious or problematic social interaction between K-12 kids
in American schools. Hardly a week passes without a national news story about
teenagers who were arrested on
child pornography charges — and face unfathomably long prison sentences —
because they had inappropriate pictures of classmates (or even themselves) on
their phones. In Iowa, in June 2016, authorities tried to
brand a 14-year-old girl as a sex offender for Snapchatting while wearing a
sports bra and boy shorts. The following month, Minnesota police officers
busted a 17-year-old for swapping consensual sexts with his 16-year-old
girlfriend. Such matters should be handled by parents and teachers, not
the cops. The same is true for the various issues that plagued Ms.
Carter and Mr. Roy.
By all means, let’s empower teachers to confront
harassment and refer troubled teenagers to mental health professionals. But we
don’t need to broadly criminalize teen cruelty to do that. Nor should we
continue down the path of pretending that the First Amendment’s ironclad
protection of hateful expression is voided whenever someone says (or texts)
something that makes us squirm.
What Ms. Carter said to Mr. Roy was outrageous.
Sending her to prison on a possible 20-year sentence is both outrageous and unjust.
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