{"id":26335,"date":"2015-08-23T18:21:53","date_gmt":"2015-08-23T22:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=26335"},"modified":"2015-08-23T18:21:53","modified_gmt":"2015-08-23T22:21:53","slug":"i-really-hate-what-this-child-did-but-is-it-a-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=26335","title":{"rendered":"I Really Hate What This Child Did, But Is It A Crime?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Boston Herald<\/a> posted a story about\u00a0Michelle Carter<\/a>, a teenager\u00a0who is on trial for sending text messages<\/a>\u00a0encouraging a fellow student to kill himself.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

The lawyer<\/a> for a Plainville teen \u2014 accused of goading her friend via text into killing himself \u2014 is defending his client in the wake of a slew of new records released by prosecutors, insisting her callous messages to the dead boy are protected under the First Amendment<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI continue to maintain that no crime<\/a> was committed,\u201d Michelle Carter\u2019s lawyer, Joseph P. Cataldo, said in an emailed response to questions from the Herald. \u201cMichelle took no actions and her speech in the form of text messages and telephone calls do not amount to a crime. \u2026 Although the district attorney\u2019s office does not like the content of the speech, it is speech which is constitutionally protected by the First Amendment and is not criminalized under our laws<\/a>.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

What Michelle Carter did was horrible–she encouraged\u00a0Conrad Roy III to kill himself–complete with instructions, challenges, etc., through text messages. Many of the text messages have been released, and they paint a picture of a calloused, uncaring person who encouraged someone to kill himself. There is no excuse for that–it is horrible behavior, but is it a crime? Doesn’t Conrad Roy III have to take the responsibility for his actions?<\/p>\n

I am not defending what this teenager has done, but what law can she be convicted under? She did not lift a hand to help her friend commit suicide<\/a>–she just encouraged him. I would strongly suggest that someone get her some sort of emotional help to find out why she did such a thing and to prevent her from doing it again. But, what law was broken? You cannot convict someone of a crime unless you can name the crime. A jury is required to rule on the evidence and the law. The evidence may be clear, but what is the law? I realize that what she did was awful, but is it illegal? Should it be? You can change the law if you choose, but you cannot make it retroactive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Boston Herald posted a story about\u00a0Michelle Carter, a teenager\u00a0who is on trial for sending text messages\u00a0encouraging a fellow student to kill himself. The article reports: The lawyer for a Plainville teen \u2014 accused of goading her friend via text … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[295,1823,5837],"class_list":["post-26335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-boston-herald","tag-first-amendment-to-the-united-states-constitution","tag-lawyer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26336,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26335\/revisions\/26336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}