Massachusetts top court upholds teen texting suicide verdict

Source: Reuters

BOSTON (Reuters) - Massachusetts’ top court on Wednesday upheld a woman’s conviction for manslaughter for goading her teenage boyfriend into suicide with a series of text messages in 2014 in a case that drew national attention to cyber-bullying.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed with a lower court’s ruling on Michelle Carter, who prosecutors said urged her 18-year-old boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to kill himself in a parking lot about 60 miles (100 km) south of Boston.

Carter’s 2017 trial highlighted the dangers of cyber bullying and raised concerns among civil liberties advocates who argued the judge overreached by finding Carter guilty for her speech. Her lawyers called the case unprecedented in the United States.

Carter, now 22, was 17 when Roy killed himself by filling his parked truck in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, with carbon monoxide from a generator he had hooked up to it.

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U.S. LEGAL NEWS FEBRUARY 6, 2019 / 9:57 AM / UPDATED 14 MINUTES AGO
Nate Raymond
2 MIN READ


Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-massachusetts-crime-teen-texting/massachusetts-top-court-upholds-teen-texting-suicide-verdict-idUSKCN1PV1SV