Friday, June 16, 2017

Michelle Carter found guilty

MassLive: "Michelle Carter found guilty by judge in text message suicide case."

I really thought she was going to get off on a freedom of speech defense but I guess the judge found her text messages encouraging her boyfriend to commit suicide so beyond the pale, he had no choice but to mete out punishment.  Some of them are so disturbing.

This case reminds me of when Abraham Lincoln exiled a Copperhead Democrat to the Confederacy because Lincoln reasoned that encouraging men to desert the Army was akin to signing a death warrant:
Long experience has shown that armies cannot be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, and the law and the Constitution sanction, this punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert?
In this case, freedom of speech took a backseat to martial law.

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