A tragic death, but not of free speech

There are lessons to be taken from the tragic death of Conrad Roy III, but they will never be learned if the ‘‘experts’’ who ought to know better try to make some kind of martyr to free speech of Michelle Carter, the young woman who now stands convicted of involuntary manslaughter in his death.

Carter’s conviction was upheld in a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court, which concluded that the then 17-year-old had ‘‘badgered’’ her 18-year-old boyfriend into committing suicide in 2014, including convincing him over the phone ‘‘to get back into the carbon monoxide-filled truck; she did absolutely nothing to help him: she did not call for help or tell him to get out of the truck as she listened to him choke and die’’.

True respect for the First Amendment, and the concept of free speech, means calling out those who twist and contort it.

It’s a distinction lost on the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which filed an amicus brief on Carter’s behalf, and shows no signs of giving up on its misguided insistence that the court ‘‘has handed prosecutors broad, undefined powers that diminish the speech rights of everyone in Massachusetts’’.

Nonsense.

Civil libertarians should be the first to cheer courts when they reserve the protections of the First Amendment for their intended purpose.