I watched an HBO documentary this weekend called I Love You, Now Die. The documentary told the story of an 18-year-old boy who committed suicide and whose girlfriend, via text messages, appeared to encourage him to do it. The legal questions were murky - the girl was charged with involuntary manslaughter but her defense was that her conduct did not result in his death - and the judge ultimately split the difference. He decided that her actions up until the night of his suicide were "reckless and wanton" (one of the elements for the crime) but that her actions did not cause his death. However, he also decided that during the act - he inhaled carbon monoxide in his truck - the boy left his car and the girl talked him into getting back inside, which he did, ultimately succumbing to the fumes.
It was almost like a tort concept of death - but for her actions he would not have died - but the legalese was less interesting to me than the broader themes involved. These were two young people struggling with significant mental health problems - he had been suicidal for some time, had attempted it a couple of times, and was caught in the middle of his parents' messy divorce; she had an eating disorder, was on anti-depressants, and felt deeply alienated without any close friends. They were sharing intimacy via text message but only met a couple of times even though they did not live that far away from each other. Sifting through her actions before his death and after is a jumble, with enough evidence to prove the point you want to make - manipulative, isolated, supportive, victim, victimizer. As her attorney pointed out, the basis of the judge's decision was based heavily on an admission she made after the fact to one of her friends that she told the boy to get back in his truck, but she was also proven to be a liar, over and over again. The key evidence, two 40 minute calls they had the night of his death were a black box because she did not testify. We never learn what they talked about. What can you believe and what was fiction?
The judge found her guilty and handed her a a roughly five-year sentence, but suspended most of it. Ultimately, she was to spend 15 months in jail. She appealed (and lost) and is now locked up. Of course, had she just accepted the verdict, she would have done her time and then been released in the time it took for her appeal to be considered and rejected, but I suppose that is a bit of after-the-fact lawyering.
Net/net, it was a tricky case because the issues were so novel, almost like a law school exam. The lines were blurry and there were no easy answers. Imagine if your entire text message history or everything you ever searched for on Google was made public. How would other people - people who purported to know you and complete strangers alike - make sense of the often contradictory emotions and thoughts we all feel? I think a lot about that. So much of my life is not just private, but secret - an entire online construct divorced entirely from my in real life persona - and few know both. Those that do, do because I want them to, because I let them, because I trust them enough to keep that secret, but what would happen if it all blew up? If nothing else, Love affirmed something I have long believed - that in a world where we are more connected than ever before in human history, there has never been a time when so many people simultaneously felt so alone.
The judge found her guilty and handed her a a roughly five-year sentence, but suspended most of it. Ultimately, she was to spend 15 months in jail. She appealed (and lost) and is now locked up. Of course, had she just accepted the verdict, she would have done her time and then been released in the time it took for her appeal to be considered and rejected, but I suppose that is a bit of after-the-fact lawyering.
Net/net, it was a tricky case because the issues were so novel, almost like a law school exam. The lines were blurry and there were no easy answers. Imagine if your entire text message history or everything you ever searched for on Google was made public. How would other people - people who purported to know you and complete strangers alike - make sense of the often contradictory emotions and thoughts we all feel? I think a lot about that. So much of my life is not just private, but secret - an entire online construct divorced entirely from my in real life persona - and few know both. Those that do, do because I want them to, because I let them, because I trust them enough to keep that secret, but what would happen if it all blew up? If nothing else, Love affirmed something I have long believed - that in a world where we are more connected than ever before in human history, there has never been a time when so many people simultaneously felt so alone.
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