Former Nurse Charged With Aiding Suicides Via Web

mernil writes "A former US nurse has been charged with two counts of aiding suicides on the Internet, US officials say. William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, is accused of encouraging the suicides of Mark Drybrough from Coventry, UK, in 2005 and Canada's Nadia Kajouji in 2008. Melchert-Dinkel, from Minnesota, allegedly posed as a female nurse, instructing people in suicide chatrooms how to take their lives. He reportedly admitted helping five or fewer people kill themselves. Some legal experts say it could be difficult to prosecute Melchert-Dinkel under a rarely used law because he allegedly only encouraged the victims to kill themselves, without physically helping them to take their lives."

Comments

Re:Ok, so what?

[gmack]

Except that's not what happened, this guy pretended to be a woman, made fake suicide pacts and actually pressured people to go through with them.

Re:Ok, so what?

[Sponge Bath]

Yes, this guy is pretty sick. From the summary I thought this was about assisted suicide of the terminally ill. The article makes it clear it was encouragement of depressed, but physically healthy, people to commit suicide.

Example of "help" provided

[monoi]

From here:

Kajouji: I am planning to attempt this Sunday.

Cami: Wow. You want to use hanging too?

Kajouji: I’m going to jump.

Cami: Well, that’s okay, but most people puss out before doing that. Plus, they don’t wanna leave a terribly messy mess for others to clean up.

Kajouji: I want it to look like an accident. There’s a bridge over the river where there’s a break in the ice. The water is really rough right now, and it should carry me back under the ice, so I can’t really come up for air. And if drowning doesn’t get me, hopefully the hypothermia will. Is there anything you want to do before you go? I’m trying to get my affairs in order—cleaning my room, paying off my loan.

Cami: I’ve got everything ready to go. My mom will get my insurance and money, so there will be no worries there. I’ve got my funeral s--- all taken care of. Got rope and stuff ready. Do you have a webcam?

Kajouji: Yes.

Cami: Well, if it comes down to hanging, I can help you with it with the cam. Proper positioning of the rope is important.

Kajouji: Thank you.

Cami: That method is so fast and certain, I can’t think of another way for me. I don’t want to feel nothing.

Words fail me, really.

Re:Ok, so what?

[h00manist]

There is freedom of speech, as long as nobody listens. If too many people start listening to you and doing something based on your speech, all your freedoms - not just speech - will soon start being questioned and curtailed all over. Take a look at anyone saying something unpopular, whether right or wrong. In the case of speech encouraging violence, death, etc, if people listen, there will be quite a reaction. Don't ask me if it's right or wrong. I don't think it's that simple a question, with black and white answers for every case.

Re:Quite right

[h00manist]

Suicide should be a human right.

From what I know, from a humanist philosophy point of view, any human being needs to have the right to full control of their body. So if someone wants to do something insane with their body, they are entitled to it. Encouraging mutilation or death however, would not be humanist. So if you decide you want to die, fine. If you want to preach people should want to die, need help to die, should be sold equipment, manuals, videos, books, have suicide parties, suicide lounges, suicide workshops, suicide encouragement boot camps, pro suicide marketing campaigns, etc, all of which is speech, well, that would be psychological violence. Thats ideals, philosophy, morality, etc however. The field of law is another matter, and how to word the law so it's not abused either way is not so easy.

Re:So now we can't tell some jerk to "drop dead"?

[Hognoxious]

Is there a legal concept of "speech intended to create immediate, injurious actions, bypassing people's rational cognitive function." ?

Yes. At the risk of being tautologous it's either "political campaigning" or "advertising".