Murder by Counselling

Last week, a Massachusetts judge invoked a 200-year old case as a precedent to hold a young girl guilty of manslaughter. Both cases raise fascinating legal and philosophical points.

In 1815, two men convicted of different crimes were in a Massachusetts prison. Jonathan Jewett, a black man, faced execution for murdering his father. George Bowen, a career thief, was in the neighbouring cell. They could talk but not see each other through a grill that separated the two cells.

Jewett was scheduled to be hanged on 8 November 1815. In those days, executions were public. Thousands gathered with excitement to watch the terrified face and later the limp body of the convict. The Sheriff of the town always made it a point to be present. Like directors are paid fees for attending a company’s meeting these days, the Sheriff was paid fees for attending each execution.

Bowen and Jewett often talked through the cell grill. ‘Why let them hang you in public, why not hang yourself’, Bowen suggested to Jewett. He told Jewett how one could be resourceful and create a noose from a bed sheet.  It should be noted that Bowen was profane, querulous, hot-tempered and mean-spirited. He hated black people. But he found joy at the prospect of denying the pleasure of the spectacle to the thousands gathering to see his fellow-convict die, and denying the fees to the Sheriff. Bowen continually urged, advised and persuaded Jewett to commit suicide.

Six hours before his scheduled execution, Jewett indeed took his own life by hanging himself in his cell.

Suicide was a grave crime and sin. Jewett was posthumously charged with that crime (although he would not be tried or sentenced). His neighbour in prison, George Bowen, was indicted for ‘murder by counselling’. He was considered not an accessory to murder, but a participant. The judge repeatedly cautioned the jury that the fact that Jewett was going to die in another few hours must be ignored. Nobody has a right to kill a person before the time scheduled by the State.

The defence argued that committing suicide was solely Jewett’s decision. Bowen was not physically present when the suicide took place. Words cannot kill.

Teenage suicide

200 years later, two American teenagers, Conrad Roy and Michelle Carter, met for the first time in Florida, while on vacation. They became friends. It appears that they met only twice in their life. Their two-year relationship was almost exclusively textual. We live in times where love can be digital. Michelle called herself Conrad’s girlfriend.

Conrad suffered from depression and inexplicable anxiety. He often considered ending his own life. In July 2014, Michelle encouraged, urged, and persuaded him to go ahead. Gassing himself in his car was an option, and she gave him detailed instructions to do so. Conrad obtained the necessary equipment. On 12 July 2014, he was once again dared by his girlfriend to show he could keep his word. When Conrad entered his car and the fumes began choking him, he came out. He was on the phone with Michelle all the time. ‘Get back into the car, don’t give up’, she ordered. Conrad re-entered the car with his phone in his hand and died of Carbon monoxide twenty minutes later. Throughout that time, his girlfriend heard him moaning and gagging on the phone. Conrad Roy was 18 when he died, and his digital girlfriend was 17.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs Michelle Carter

The defence argued Conrad was suicidal and he might have taken his life one day any way. Michelle was 35 miles away when Conrad killed himself, and they had not met for over a year. Text messages were mere words, how could one cause death through words?

Some legal experts argued the USA has freedom of speech. While Michelle’s conduct was awful, it can’t override her freedom of speech. She could at best be tried for cyberbullying, not for manslaughter.

The prosecution argued Michelle urged Conrad to commit suicide. Though not personally present, she was on the phone with him, she was in his ears, she was in his mind. In that sense, she was with him when he died.

The judge said Michelle’s conduct was reckless and wanton. When Conrad came out of the car, confused, she asked him to go back in. Instead of calling for help, alerting Conrad’s family or police, she was on the phone with him until he died. She could have taken steps to stop him or seek help, it was her duty. Not doing so amounted to criminal conduct. Michelle Carter was held guilty of manslaughter and faces up to 20 years in prison. The exact quantum of punishment will be announced on 3 August 2017.

Sample text messages

Here are some of the sample text messages between the teenagers.

Michelle to Conrad: Yeah, it will work. If you emit 3200 ppm of it for five or ten minutes you will die within a half hour. You lose consciousness with no pain. You just fall asleep and die. You can also just take a hose and run that from the exhaust pipe to the rear window in your car and seal it with ducttape and shirts, so it can’t escape. You will die within, like, 20 or 30 minutes all pain free.

Michelle to Conrad: Don’t do it in the driveway. You will be easily found... Find a spot. Just park your car and sit there and it will take, like 20 minutes. It’s not a big deal.

Conrad to Michelle: Okay. I’m gonna do it today.

Michelle to Conrad: You promise?

Conrad to Michelle: I promise, babe. I have to now.

Michelle to Conrad: Like right now?

Conrad to Michelle: Where do I go?

Michelle to Conrad: And you can’t break a promise. And just go in a quietparking lot or something.

Conrad to Michelle: 7/12/2014|3:40:35 p.m.: I’m determined

Michelle to Conrad: 7/12/2014 | 3:41:33 p.m.: I'm happy to hear that

Michelle to Conrad: 7/12/2014 | 3:47:18 p.m.: When you get back from the beach, you gotta  … do it….

Conrad to Michelle: 7/12/2014 | 4:26:55 p.m.: no more thinking

Michelle to Conrad: 7/12/2014 | 4:26:55 p.m.: Yes, no more thinking you need to just do it...

Michelle to Conrad: 7/12/2014 | 5:17:23 PM ...Did you delete the text messages?

Motive

What could be a possible motive for such messages, for a young girl to urge her digital boyfriend to commit suicide?

It seems Michelle wanted to gain attention, draw sympathy from her girlfriends. She had already told them (texted perhaps) about this suicidal boyfriend of hers. In her mind, they were getting sick of the suicide threats that never materialised; they didn’t trust her any more. Michelle needed to prove to them she meant what she had said. On Conrad’s death, she could become the ‘grieving girlfriend’.

This role of the grieving girlfriend is apparently inspired by American serials. A Netflix series “13 reasons why” is about a 17 year old girl who commits suicide and leaves behind a series of audiotapes describing her reasons. It’s been criticised as glamourising teenage suicide. About 5000 American teenagers commit suicide every year.

In another TV show “Glee”, its young actor died of drug overdose in real life. This death was included in the script after he died. Rachel, the fictional young girl in Glee, is the grieving girlfriend. Perhaps not as a coincidence, many of the text messages by Michelle Carter were found to be word-for-word with the lines uttered by Rachel in Glee.

Freedom of speech

Michelle, while urging Conrad to kill himself, hadn’t forgotten to ask him to delete all messages before dying. She had deleted the messages as well. However, the police recovered all deleted messages between them, since technology now allows such retrieval.

If you read detective novels, you are familiar with “Miranda rights” where the police are obliged to warn a possible culprit that he has a right to remain silent. An accused can’t be forced to say anything that may incriminate him. The fifth amendment of the USA constitution extends that privilege to witnesses as well.

If the communication between Conrad and Michelle was personal or telephonic (but not recorded), nothing would have happened to Michelle. We have heard the expression ‘his word against mine’ used in eyewitness testimony. In the 1815 case, the Jury pronounced George Bowen “not guilty”. One reason was that his alleged conversations with Jewett couldn’t be verified.

Michelle’s conversations with the dead boy, unfortunately for her, were in the form of a text message. She dug her own grave by recording everything she was saying. One peculiarity of this trial was that the prosecutor and witnesses were reading the text messages from a computer screen rather than recalling from memory.

This case also brings the real world and virtual world closer. Crimes can be committed without physical actions or presence. Orders over the phone or text messages are as good as the person’s presence.  

Euthanasia

One concern raised by legal experts is that this case sets a precedent that can attract “manslaughter” charges for someone offering euthanasia or mercy killing.

First of all, Euthanasia is not legal anywhere in the world. A doctor or a close relative mercy-killing a patient ailing from a painful, terminal illness can be prosecuted for manslaughter.

In certain countries such as Benelux or Switzerland, a Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) is legal. The regulations are strict; there are enough controls to make sure the process is not abused. The doctor explains to the patient how to administer the medicine. It is the patient himself who must inject or consume the medicine.

Except these countries, assisted suicide is illegal and can qualify as manslaughter. In the case of Conrad Roy, he was a physically healthy young teenager with an anxiety disorder. It’s possible he could have overcome his depression and led a long life.

Your verdict

Apparently Massachusetts doesn’t have a law against encouraging suicide. Many other US states have such a law. That’s the reason some people argue Michelle Carter can’t be held guilty.

If you or I were in the judge’s chair, we would find adjudicating this case equally difficult. Carter’s defence waived the right for a jury trial because, I think, they feared jury are more emotion-prone.

I believe the judge was absolutely right in holding her guilty. Even if you assume a teenage girl may not understand the implications of her actions, you have a dead boy as a consequence. I personally believe in the spirit more than the letter of the law. In this case, justice requires overriding technicalities. Any fair minded person simply reading the anthology of her text messages (included in the footnote) will declare Michelle Carter guilty.

The sentence would be announced on 3 August. Of course, she would not be given 20 years, the possible maximum, I don’t think. The fact that she is out on bail until the sentence suggests the court will be lenient in view of her age. Sending a young girl to jail would destroy her life, it would make her prone to committing further crimes. My prediction is that she will be asked to spend two years or so in some form of community service for rehabilitation.

And one big lesson for everybody else: Be careful when sending text messages. They document your communication that can be recovered even when you delete it. Your reckless text messages can incriminate you and send you to jail as well.

Ravi

Web-o-graphy

(1)               http://www.wsc.mass.edu/mhj/pdfs/murder%20by%20counseling.pdf : the 1816 ‘murder by counselling’ case of George Bowen. A detailed narrative.

(2)              http://www.cbsnews.com/news/death-by-text-the-case-against-michelle-carter/ : Death by text: a detailed video report.

(3)              https://www.scribd.com/doc/276206526/Michelle-Carter-Texts : All text messages between the Conrad Roy and Michelle Carter.   

R.