Michelle Carter sends an SMS on a suicide case: 4 things to know about her call

Michelle Carter's texting suicide case goes to court Thursday when Massachusetts highest court hears arguments on appeal his conviction for manslaughter last year for persuading his boyfriend to commit suicide in 2014, while they were teenagers.

The 21-year-old from Plainville was sentenced to 15 months in prison following his death sentence on Conrad Roy III. She remained free as long as her appeal of her conviction is pending.

In June 2017, Justice Lawrence Moniz of the Juvenile Court found Carter caused the teenager's death when he got out of the truck, he had intentionally started filling carbon monoxide in a parking lot and she told him to "go home". Moniz said these words, spoken on the phone by Carter from 30 miles away, constitute "a free and careless conduct" and that Carter, at age 17, had a duty to call for help when she knew that her 18-year-old boyfriend was trying to commit suicide, which she did not do.

At the heart of the lawsuit and the case were the disturbing texts and emails between the two teenagers, who both fought against depression. Carter and Roy met in 2012 while they were both on vacation with their family in Florida, but they met only a few times in person.

"You just have to do it," Carter wrote to Roy in an exchange discussing his suicidal thoughts. "You said you were going to do it. As if I do not understand why you do not do it. "

The Supreme Court of Justice granted Carter direct review of his case. One of the arguments of the young woman's lawyers is that her conviction based on her words "alone" violates her freedom of speech and creates a dangerous precedent.

"Carter is the first person to be sentenced anywhere in such unusual circumstances," his lawyers said in the file submitted to the SJC. "If this Court confirms, Massachusetts would be the only state to uphold a conviction for involuntary manslaughter when an absent defendant, with words only, encourages another person to commit suicide."

Here are four questions and answers about the call.

What will happen at the hearing?

On Thursday, the seven judges of the SJC will hear the pleadings of Carter's lawyers and prosecutors defending the conviction, based on briefs already submitted to the court.

"The idea is that on appeal the defendant challenges the decisions, evidence and conclusions presented at trial," said Daniel Medwed, professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern University. "A part of [the arguments] are the ones that were made at trial, others will be those based on what happened at the trial. And basically, they argue that the judge was wrong or that the prosecutor did something wrong. This is what happens on appeal. You claim that mistakes made during your trial deprived you of a fair process. "

The judges will then have the opportunity to ask questions to both parties before taking the matter under advisement.

What are some of the issues raised in this case?

David Siegel, a law professor at New England Law, told Boston.com that the SJC will consider two rounds of questions when he hears the arguments on Thursday. The first set deals with the "sufficiency of the evidence" in the case – if there is enough evidence to convict the judge of manslaughter, he said.

"I think it's really important to understand that it's a case that relies almost entirely on these e-mail messages," Siegel said. "And it was based on e-mails that were both before and during the time the young man was in the car and died, then after. This was used as evidence to determine the degree of risk she was aware of and whether or not she acted appropriately in the circumstances. Such, then, is the sufficiency of the questions relating to the evidence.

Siegel stated that the second set of questions was "really constitutional questions", such as whether Carter had been convicted on the basis of her words "rather than anything she had done directly" violated the First Amendment. .

"The case is interesting for a number of reasons," he said. "I think it's probably the most important because it involved the actions of a remote person whose actions are meant to communicate. And whose actions consist only in communicating with someone else who must then make an independent decision. This kind of context is exactly the reason why many other states have laws that provide for assistance in case of suicide. "

Massachusetts does not have a law criminalizing assisted suicide.

"Part of the defendant's argument is that since there is no such crime in Massachusetts, no one in Ms. Carter's situation could reasonably have known that such conduct could to be interpreted as manslaughter, "said Siegel. "So it's unconstitutional, it violates the regular procedures for, after the fact, adapting it to this kind of crime."

In 2016, the CJS ruled that Carter could be tried for manslaughter, finding that his "verbal conduct at issue was sufficient" to be impeached.

"Legally, it always seemed to me to be an attack, a prosecution by the prosecution to charge this manslaughter," Medwed said. "And I think perhaps a possible consequence of this whole affair and the notoriety that surrounds it is that Massachusetts might perhaps enact a law criminalizing forced suicide."

What happens after the hearing?

Medwed said Thursday's pleadings will last about an hour. At the end of the hearing, the judges will take the case under advisement and eventually render an opinion. Under the rules of the SJC, written notices are issued within 130 days of the closing arguments.

"We can expect that we will not get it until early 2019, presumably," Medwed said of the decision on the appeal.

What are the possible outcomes?

If the SJC upheld Carter's conviction, she could appeal to the federal court, Medwed said.

If that is not the case, Siegel stated that the court could overturn Carter's conviction on the basis of sufficient evidence or constitutional issues.

Medwed stated that if the conviction was overturned, the issues identified by the CJM in the actual decision would determine what would happen next.

"Some problems give rise to a new trial," said Medwed. "If the decision is reversed for other reasons, it may be an immediate dismissal and the conviction set aside, it is reversed."

Siegel stated that if the court ruled that there was not enough evidence to convict her of manslaughter, her conviction would be overturned and set aside, ending her trial.

"If the court says that the evidence is sufficient, then addresses the constitutional issues and finds that it is unconstitutional to interpret this set of facts to result in manslaughter, then the conviction would also be overturned," he said. he declared. "Because there is no assistance for a crime of suicide, that would also end the case."