From USA Today:
“Michelle Carter, who encouraged
boyfriend's suicide, released from jail early for good behavior”
Michelle Carter, a Massachusetts
woman convicted of involuntary manslaughter for encouraging her boyfriend to
kill himself in a high-profile texting-suicide case, was released from jail
early for good behavior Thursday after serving 11 months. Carter, 22, was escorted out of the Bristol
County House of Corrections in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, around 9:30 a.m. by
corrections employees holding a pair of plastic bags of clothes. She was picked up by her parents and attorneys
in a black Jeep while a swarm of reporters waited outside. A television
station's helicopter followed the vehicle as it left the facility. Carter's release came four months before the
end of her 15-month jail sentence. She had been in jail since February after
she was convicted in 2017 of involuntary manslaughter in the suicide of Conrad
Roy III in 2014. Jonathan Darling, a
spokesman for the Bristol County Sheriff's Office, said state law allows
inmates to shave up to 10 days off their sentences for each month served for
good behavior. He said Carter participated in vocational and educational
programs, took civics classes, worked in the cafeteria of the women's jail and
stayed out of trouble. "While she
was here, we had no problems with her, no fights, no gangs, nothing like
that," Darling said. "She was polite to our staff, our volunteers.
And she was in a lot of programs. I guess the best way to say it is she was
sort of a model inmate here in Bristol County." Joseph Cataldo, Carter's
attorney, said in an email to USA TODAY, "I am very pleased she is home.
Future legal plans will be announced in due course." Carter's release from
jail was met with disappointment by Roy's grandfather, Conrad Roy, who told the
Boston Herald, "The sheriff should serve the rest of her time. He lets her
go because she’s a good girl? She’s not a good girl.” Last week, the Supreme
Court refused to hear her appeal seeking to overturn her conviction. A state
court's decision was upheld by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in
February. In September, a state parole board denied Carter early release. Carter,
of Plainville, Massachusetts, was 17 at the time of Roy's death in Fairhaven,
Massachusetts. She incessantly messaged him to kill himself, which he did by
inhaling fumes in a generator he put inside a truck. Roy had attempted suicide
multiple times and struggled with depression and mental illness. Carter talked on the phone at length with Roy
when he was parked at a Kmart lot where he died. She texted a friend that she
told him to "get back in" the vehicle after he stepped out. The
Carter case reentered the spotlight last year when HBO released a two-part
documentary titled "I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle
Carter." Backed by Roy's mother, Lynn, Massachusetts state lawmakers are
considering legislation dubbed "Conrad's Law" that would criminalize
suicide coercion in the commonwealth. Massachusetts is one of 10 states without
laws that explicitly punish individuals who induce others to kill themselves.
Rather than being subject to manslaughter, as Carter was, a person who
intentionally "encourages or coerces" a suicide or suicide attempt
would face a new specific criminal liability imposed under the bill.
^ It should be illegal in every
US State and Territory to encourage or coerce others to commit suicide.
Hopefully Massachusetts and the 9 other States that don’t have such laws will now
make them into law. As for Carter. She is clearly an unstable woman. She should
have been moved from prison and sent into a mental health institution and kept
there. I’m sure that she is not reformed and will continue her craziness. I
just hope that when she does she will not hurt anyone else the way she did
Conrad Roy. ^
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/23/michelle-carter-woman-boyfriend-suicide-texting-case-released-jail/4551852002/
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