Comments by "cchris874" (@cchris874) on "Dr. Todd Grande" channel.

The case frustrates me because of the fundamental assumption that these texts were the equivalent of a drunk driver killing Roy. There is no way to read Roy's mind to test the idea he had no ability to resist the text messages. That's yet another layer of reasonable doubt.
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@2300j Thank your for your reply. I agree the implications are a bit unsettling. I cannot say I am completely convinced by my own argument. I feel from a "cosmic" perspective the girl got about the right amount of punishment. But I guess my point is we should be making law on the basis of concrete principles and not on instinctive emotion. I think this case was more about the latter. People felt in their gut Michelle is evil, and that dictated such posts as she deserves life in prison.
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Suicide is actually legal in all 50 states. "Seems counter intuitive..." It seems that way, but I will give a guess that the idea behind it is that suicidal people are in an irrational state. By contrast the person who assists is rational but evil. So the idea may be the evil component. Suicidal person is not acting on evil, but the person assisting is. Just speculating.
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I would actually go a bit further than Dr. Grande. In my book, involuntary manslaughter implies the victim has limited or even no control over his victimization. This is easily recognized in drunk driving cases, or other forms of negligence that lead to death. But what no one (that I've seen) is questioning here is, does being suicidally depressed of necessity deprive you of free will? That's yet another element of reasonable doubt. We will never know if she pushed him over the edge against his will, or pushed him over the edge by his taking her advice into consideration the way we all do when having conversations with others.
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And also the value judgement most of us have, that it's irrational to commit suicide. There might be some reasonable doubt there as well. My main reason for challenging the verdict is that involuntary manslaughter implies the person cannot adequately or reasonably defend themselves. But unlike say a drunk driving death, where it's crystal clear who killed whom, here there is no such certainty. It's sheer guess work and speculation to assume a suicidally depressed person cannot defend themselves against the mere words of another. How do we we know this beyond a reasonable doubt?
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