Michelle Carter waives the right to a jury
USA - The Massachusetts woman, 20, charged with manslaughter for sending her boyfriend text messages encouraging him to kill himself has waived her right to a jury trial. Michelle Carter, who broke down in tears in Taunton Trial Court, took the witness stand on Monday to tell Judge Lawrence Moniz she was waiving her right to a jury, meaning the judge will hear the testimony and issue the verdict. The 20-year-old Carter is charged in the 2014 death of 18-year-old Conrad Roy III. Roy was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his pickup truck in Fairhaven. Prosecutors released transcripts of text messages the then-17-year-old Carter sent to Roy. In one, she allegedly wrote: ‘The time is right and you’re ready, you just need to do it!’ The court heard that Carter and Roy exchanged more than 20,000 text messages - with more than 1,000 of those messages sent in the days leading up to Roy’s death. Prosecutors say Carter sent her boyfriend dozens of text messages urging him to take his own life. Carter’s lawyer argue that she tried repeatedly to talk him out of it and only began to support the plan when it became clear he would not change his mind. They add that the texts are protected under free speech and that Roy was depressed and previously tried to take his own life. Carter was 17 when Roy took his own life via carbon monoxide poisoning and prosecutors argue she is criminally responsible because she encouraged him to kill himself in a series of text messages. In the hour before his death, prosecutors say, he was on the phone with Carter for 47 minutes, at one point telling her he was getting out of the truck because he feared it wasn’t working. ‘The car was filling up, and he was scared’, said prosecutor MaryClare Flynn. ‘She told him to get back in the car.’ ‘When he actually started to carry out the act, he got scared again and exited his truck, but instead of telling him to stay out of the truck ... Carter told him to ‘get back in’,’ the police report said. Roy had also attempted suicide and had been hospitalized before he met Carter. In March, a controversial psychiatrist said Carter was ‘involuntarily intoxicated’ by prescribed antidepressants when she texted her boyfriend encouragement as he committed suicide.
(dailymail.co.uk)