Teen Suicide Texting Conviction Denied Supreme Court Review

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case of a Massachusetts woman convicted “with her words alone” for the death of a fellow teen who killed himself in 2014.

By rejecting Michelle Carter’s appeal, the justices passed on the opportunity to draw a line between free speech and criminality in the unique case with First Amendment implications.

Carter “neither physically provided the means of death nor physically participated in the suicide or was even close to the scene,” her lawyers told the justices in seeking review of her conviction for the death of Conrad Roy. He died by carbon monoxide poisoning while in his truck.

He was 18. She was 17. They lived in different parts of the state. They met in 2012 and kept a long-distance relationship through texts and calls. That’s how she encouraged Roy, who made previous suicide attempts, to take his own life.

But Carter’s involuntary manslaughter conviction cannot stand under the U.S. Constitution’s speech and due process protections, her lawyers argued.

“Who is to say whether a particular case is an acceptable assisted-suicide or a blameworthy killing?” they asked, warning of prosecutorial overreach if left unchecked.

The case is Carter v. Massachusetts, U.S., No. 19-62, review denied 1/13/20.