'Texting Suicide' Case Could End Up at Supreme Court

The "texting suicide" case made it all the way to the highest level of Massachusetts' judicial system—but the state's top court upheld Michelle Carter's conviction Wednesday. Carter, now 22, was convicted of manslaughter after urging her 18-year-old boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to kill himself in 2014, when she was 17. A suicidal Roy, with Carter's goading, climbed back into his carbon-monoxide filled truck after stepping out, and ultimately died. The seven-member Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in a unanimous verdict, found that Carter did indeed "badger" and "constantly pressure" Roy to go through with the suicide, Reuters reports.

"The evidence against the defendant proved that, by her wanton or reckless conduct, she caused the victim’s death by suicide," reads the decision. Carter's team had argued her conviction violated her first amendment right to free speech, but the court found that she was not being punished for just words but for "reckless or wanton words causing death." The court also ruled Carter had a duty to contact authorities or Roy's parents when she knew he was harming himself, the AP reports. Carter had been ordered to serve 15 months of a 2 1/2-year sentence in prison, but she has been free, with the sentence on hold, during the appeal process. Her lawyer says he may now appeal to the US Supreme Court. (Much more on the case here.)