The MySpace Suicide Indictment

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: Thanatos You know, nobody ever commits assault. If I punch someone and they get hurt its their fault for being too squishy and insufficiently shatter-resistant. I just can't come up with a general definition of murder that doesn't also make this murder. This mom set out to cause someone harm and the victim died as a result. The girl did not even have a preexisting mental illness! Come on, this is silly.

She did have a mental illness - she was a lovestruck teenage girl. The mother and daughter are despicable people for inspiring such feelings in the girl, but they did nothing criminal. They are emotional bullies.

These are the kinds of risks people accept when they talk to people online. You never know who's on the other end.

[Barnicals]

Quote by: Captain Cardio Is there a formal legal term for intentional emotional abuse? My interpretation of this one is that its like punching somebody hard, and in a freak occurence, they die from it. This myspace deception that was meant to hurt the girl's feelings, was like an emotional punch. It was meant to hurt her, but it had the unlikely and unintended (but perhaps not regretted) occurence of causing what we might call 'emotional death' - suicide. The situation gets a bit more complicated though, as it was an adult that perpetrated this 'emotional assault'. Also it seems the girl was a bit emotionally unstable, if the perpetrator knew this, I suppose you could compare this emotional assault with punching somebody you know isn't in great health. Maybe the equivalent of a heart condition. This could have been a crime like an adult punching a 13 year old girl who had a heart condition. The reason we can imply there was some muscle or force behind this punch, is that an adult would have more life experience, and would have a much more sophisticated way of charming a young girl into the rouse of a sincere online relationship. The adult would also know a much more effective way of timing and wording an insult in an effort to hurt the girl. Now admittedly I've reached pretty far with this comparison, but I think there is still some merit to it. Another factor, is the belief of the perpetrator, that there would be no accountability or punishment for this deliberate intent to hurt someone. I think that the terms of service argument is kind of unrelated to the issue. It seems the ToS is being used through legal channels, as a way of justifying the punishment, that people intuitively feel the defendant deserves. But really, nobody thinks somebody should be punished 20 years for violating terms of service. People feel the perpetrator should be punished for their deliberate emotional assault on somebody young and vulnerable. An important note, is to not dismiss emotional assault as being less substantive than physical assault. Just because the pain or damage disappears into the recesses of an individual's mind, does not mean that harm, in a real sense, was not inflicted.

It's sort of 6 degrees of seperation, but I completely understand where you're coming from. With regard to a punch accidentally killing somebody, Mmmhm. As a martial artist, more specifically a Black Belt, we're looked upon much more harshly in a legal sense... Because we have that much more experience, we have more ability to kill someone with a punch, so we're more likely to be charged with murder or given the maximum sentance of manslaughter. Now, I think that the mother, with her experience of adolesence and life, makes HER much more effective and damaging, and we get the same result: Somebody dies. Maybe she should be looked at in the same sense as an experienced martial artist who delivers that punch.

[Gods_Mercenary]

You know, nobody ever commits assault. If I punch someone and they get hurt its their fault for being too squishy and insufficiently shatter-resistant. I just can't come up with a general definition of murder that doesn't also make this murder. This mom set out to cause someone harm and the victim died as a result. The girl did not even have a preexisting mental illness! Come on, this is silly.

If she had a pre-existing mental illness that they were aware of, it would make them more guilty, but she chose to commit suicide. Assault is the act of punching, not the reaction of the victim. and I'm relatively sure the pair did not intend for the girl to kill herself.

[Thanatos]

Quote by: Kamehameha34 She did have a mental illness - she was a lovestruck teenage girl. The mother and daughter are despicable people for inspiring such feelings in the girl, but they did nothing criminal. They are emotional bullies. These are the kinds of risks people accept when they talk to people online. You never know who's on the other end.

I see your point. Captain Cardio was on a better track.

I just keep coming back to the final scenes in Saw. Great movie, don't watch it late at night unless you like psychological horror and gore. Its about this serial killer who finds ways to make people kill themselves by exploiting emotional weaknesses. I hate to say a horror movie influenced my philosophy but driving someone to suicide seems equivalent to a more hands-on approach.

[Ghazni]

Quote by: Thanatos You know, nobody ever commits assault. If I punch someone and they get hurt its their fault for being too squishy and insufficiently shatter-resistant. I just can't come up with a general definition of murder that doesn't also make this murder. This mom set out to cause someone harm and the victim died as a result. The girl did not even have a preexisting mental illness! Come on, this is silly.

I think you realize how wrong that is without me pointing it out, but I'll do it anyway.

If you punch someone you have forced them to be hurt aside from any part they could possibly play in the decision. Someone committing suicide due to their own emotional problems that were simply sparked by a common childish prank is certainly not force on the part of the pranksters.

[tehbrooksinator]

Yes I agree, the girl could have been depressed, etc,etc. However the parents of the suicide girl should get charged for cyber bullying.

[Matt W]

Quote by: tehbrooksinator Yes I agree, the girl could have been depressed, etc,etc. However the parents of the suicide girl should get charged for cyber bullying.

What?!? How does that work? The parents of the girl who committed suicide should be charged for a non-existant offence? Perhaps you'd like to clarify...

[tehbrooksinator]

Lolz I made a mistake, the girl and her mum should be charged for cyber bullying

[Ghazni]

Quote by: tehbrooksinator Yes I agree, the girl could have been depressed, etc,etc. However the parents of the suicide girl should get charged for cyber bullying.

Cyber-bullying as a crime? I can't tell if you're joking or not...

[Gods_Mercenary]

Quote by: tehbrooksinator Lolz I made a mistake, the girl and her mum should be charged for cyber bullying

Since when is bullying a crime?

[Derek Wolff]

What she did wasn't against any laws, nor should it have been. There was no "conspiracy" and I don't know what "unauthorized use of computers is". The only unauthorized use is disobeying the MySpace UA, and that's not a federal crime. Any decent lawyer should win the case.

That is not the point, the point is they are attempting to charge this woman in some manner in order to have at least a little bit of justice. This is an adult woman, a mother, and she stooped so low as to insult and hurt a child that bullied her child. What kind of parents do we have in America anymore? They sound as childish as their own children, maybe even more so. I don't believe their child was attempting to get vengeance against her. There needs to be a charge of some sort.

[Ghazni]

Quote by: Derek Wolff That is not the point, the point is they are attempting to charge this woman in some manner in order to have at least a little bit of justice. This is an adult woman, a mother, and she stooped so low as to insult and hurt a child that bullied her child. What kind of parents do we have in America anymore? They sound as childish as their own children, maybe even more so. I don't believe their child was attempting to get vengeance against her. There needs to be a charge of some sort.

So what was the crime?

The justice that this person needs to receive is the same justice as she would have received had the girl not commited suicide, which is probably a scolding by the child's mother. The child's mother needs to have the rationality in this hard time to understand that her child was responsible for her own actions, and no one else, as difficult as that is to admit.

[Sweet Katie]

I'm all for taking the mother down to the river and drowning her. I've left internet sites because of cyber bullies and moderators who allow their subscribers to post any insult of they choose. Boycotting those sites or group confrontations of bullies are the only options currently available to us.

[ironeagle]

normally I might suggest a small conviction of harrassment, but if the girl did not opposs the continued contact of the person or file a police compaint, my guess was she wanted to "talk" with the "boy". If my fiance breaks up with me and I kill myself should he go to jail for murder? I agree no crime was committed, I do not agree with the civil action because it is not the correct venue, you must prove that a person voluntarily created a debt and did not pay or that a crime has been committed and the civil action is a fine, but niether of those things are true.

[ineco]

I believe that an indictment is the right thing. People take cyber abuse not seriously enough. That woman was old enough to know that what she was doing was wrong. I remember the girl's (who hung herself) father was quoted saying something like "I absolutely agree that it was my daughter's own decision to take her very life, but if you are going to go by the fact that [insert girl's name] pulled the trigger, you also have to go by the fact that [insert bad neighbour's name] loaded the bullet." (It's just a analogy, we all know she didn't really kill herself with a gun.)

I'm sure that the quote is not perfect word for word, but you get the point. I agree with the father 100%. Sure the daughter chose to end her life, but would she have if that neighbour hadn't prodded her and sunk her into a depression. The girl was only 13. She obviously wasn't mature enough to understand that one boy not liking her isn't the end of the world, yet she was put into the alienating situation because of an ex-best friend's idiotic parent.

[ironeagle]

Well if a law exists in her country that makes it a criminal offense to act as another person and they can prove that the intent was malcious then she should be convicted of that crime not murder. I am not intune with the internet laws, becuase they are not clear, but in the US you have the right to use any identity or name you wish sp long as it is not for the purposes of committing fraud or identity theft. The law would have to prove they intended to commit fraud or stole the identity of an existing person. An example of using a ficticous name would be authors using ghost writer names.

[Brian]

why didnt the girl just refuse the friend request? She could have chose not to listen and put herself around good influences.. what do we teach our children?

[ironeagle]

Amen Brian you have a good point, although I do think children are suseptable to these kinds of acts as they are not adults and do not always think as clearly as we do.

[thrashee]

Sorry, but I don't care WHAT the condition of this girl was.

If she committed suicide because of a Myspace incident, she was obviously unstable to begin with. And I'm not talking about unstable like every other raging hormonal teen or pre-teen out there.

Who here hasn't been mocked, made fun of, or bullied at some point in school? Who here is obviously still here?

Granted, the actions of the mother/daughter were despicable, but what does that have to do with crime? It's an appeal to emotion.