SJC says words can have deadly consequences

Words speak just as loudly as actions.

That was the opinion rendered by the state’s highest court in upholding Michelle Carter’s involuntary manslaughter conviction.

Carter, who was 17 at the time, convinced her boyfriend Conrad Roy III through text messages to get back in a truck filling with toxic fumes, which caused his death in July 2014.

According to testimony, Carter was 30 miles away from Roy and on the phone with him when took his life in a deserted parking lot in Fairhaven.

Roy, described by Supreme Judicial Court Justice Scott Kafker as a “vulnerable, confused, mentally ill, 18-year-old,’’ was manipulated by Carter into committing suicide after apparently having second thoughts about taking his own life.

“After she convinced him 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,” Justice Kafker wrote in the high court’s unanimous decision.

A juvenile court judge convicted Carter in 2017 based on the same conclusions reached by the SJC: that Carter caused Roy’s death when she told him to get back in his carbon-monoxide filled truck, further stating Carter had a duty to call the police or Roy’s family when she knew he was killing himself.

Carter’s 15-month sentence — in a case entwined with free-speech and mental-health issues — was stayed pending the appeal of her conviction to the SJC.

While it had been noted that Carter, now 22, had been treated for anorexia, and that Roy had made earlier suicide attempts, mental competency apparently wasn’t deemed a disqualifying factor in this case.

Ultimately, this case came down to the limits of free speech.

Carter’s lawyers said they will consider appealing the SJC’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, among other legal options.

Defense attorney Daniel Marx, in a statement, said the high court’s decision created “troubling implications, for free speech, due process and the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, that should concern us all.”

Essentially, the defense considered Roy’s suicide a tragedy, but not a crime.

The SJC found that it was both a tragedy — and a crime.

As Justice Kafker clarified, Carter’s texting constituted more than protected free speech, but rather words with lethal consequences.

Another issue raised by defense lawyers — rightfully dismissed by the justices — concerned what effect Carter’s conviction might have on spouses’ and families’ conversations about end-of-life issues, which could include suicide.

“This case does not involve the prosecution of end-of-life discussions between a doctor, family member or friend and a mature, terminally ill adult confronting the difficult personal choices that must be made when faced with the certain physical and mental suffering brought upon by impending death,’’ the court wrote.

And contrary to the ACLU of Massachusetts’ contention that this ruling gives the government overly broad powers based on subjective definitions of what constitutes free speech, this case proved just the opposite.

As even the ACLU knows, free speech isn’t absolute.

Encouraging and cajoling a vulnerable teen to take his own life can no more be tolerated than yelling fire in a crowded theater.

As the Supreme Judicial Court reaffirmed, knowingly reckless behavior — whether by words or deeds — that causes grievous harm must be considered a crime.

There’s nothing vague or arbitrary about that conclusion.