Original subtitles

Did you have some interaction with a Conrad Roy Junior?

-Yes, I did. -And could you please describe that?

Objection.

Overruled.

I was... I was... I responded to an assault call, sir.

Okay. And what did you do when you arrived?

We attempted to find the person that had been assaulted.

Okay. And at some point in time, did you come into, um,

the physical presence of Conrad Roy III?

- I did. - Okay. And uh,

did you make any observations of him?

Yes, his face was swollen red

and he had some uh, lacerations to his face.

Did you obtain a written statement from him?

I did, yes.

I found myself at a home located on Perkins Lane.

And what did you do when you arrived at that location?

I interviewed an older male and a female.

Okay. And do you remember the older male's name?

Conrad Roy.

And did you ask him specifically what happened?

Yes, I did.

Before concluding my investigation,

a male party was subsequently placed under arrest.

-And who was that male party that was... -The father.

-The one you were speaking to? -Correct.

-And what was he arrested for? -Assault and battery domestic.

Yeah. You know, you think at first it's kind of embarrassing.

But you know what? It doesn't really matter.

I know what happened that night with my son.

And I know, like, I was being a parent.

And I know things got out of control and we both fought each other.

And, um...

and I'd do it again just... just like that.

You know, sometimes, like, you say it, you know, like...

My father always said, "If you ever take a swing at me,

you're gonna, um,

you're gonna get it." You know? It's like,

"You're gonna make sure you don't do that ever again."

And I just felt like I had to do the same thing.

Hard to describe the feeling in the courtroom today.

Pretty much everyone on edge.

Now, the defense will present their case.

They've already called several witnesses this morning

and things will move forward in this landmark trial.

You have to remember that this case has two families

who were basically trying to do the same thing.

They both want a version of the story in which it is not their fault.

The Roys are hoping for a version of the story

where the suicide of their son is Michelle's fault,

and that she was waiting for the moment when she could pounce on this kid

and make him kill himself and get a bunch of sympathy.

And the Carters are hoping for a version of the story

where Michelle's actions are not her fault.

And that's what Peter Breggin was arguing.

- Morning, Doctor. - Good morning, Your Honor.

Please raise your right hand. In this matter before the court,

you swear the testimony you're about to give to be the truth, the whole truth

and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

-I do. -Thank you.

All right. Please take a seat, sir. Make yourself nice and comfortable.

I got a call out of the blue from the attorney, Mr. Cataldo.

What he said is, "Doc, we got this case

that we don't know what's going on and we can't figure out...

Um... Give us a hand."

I was originally called in

to see whether Conrad Roy's medication had made him suicidal.

He was on psychiatric drugs, antidepressants,

and if you look at the research on what the psych drugs do...

they can cause suicide.

I concluded it was a contributing factor,

but not an overwhelming factor,

because there were many other things impinging on Conrad.

Conrad was reacting to a very unhappy,

angry, and at times, violent divorce. We know that.

The father charged the mother with assault.

There're all these things coming to bear on him.

Then I found out that Michelle was... on psychiatric drugs too.

And so, we have these two kids;

they're not star crossed, they're drug crossed.

When did Michelle Carter start, uh, consuming SSRIs?

She started Prozac

on February 17, 2011, uh, ten milligrams.

And, uh, she was just a young girl then,

fourteen going on 15.

Okay, thank you.

Prozac greatly increase the risk of suicide in young people her age.

And she never should've been given Prozac

because she was bulimic,

and that would increase the power of Prozac over her.

And not long after her first exposure to Prozac,

she climbed up on a stool

and put a noose around her neck in her closet.

Now at the same moment, Conrad Roy,

whom at that point she thought was a sweet boyfriend

without any serious problems,

was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a serious suicide attempt.

So now Michelle, who's a youngster,

who's on Prozac at the time,

is dealing with this huge disclosure.

It's... And he is saying "I'm not who you thought I was."

And furthermore, as announced to her

that voices are telling himself to kill himself tonight.

Michelle becomes desperate.

Conrad won't answer her.

And she thinks he's killed himself.

Conrad, at least four times, attempted suicide,

once nearly killing himself.

He overdosed on acetaminophen.

And the EMTs call me.

And, um, they ask, they're like,

"Well, he threw... You know, threw up a lot.

Do you want him to be seen?"

I said "Absolutely."

He almost needed a liver transplant at that time.

He said he would never do that again.

He said, "I promise you

I will nev... never do that again."

I said, "You know that if you died,

mom would want to die too. You know that, right?"

And how is this relevant to your clinical analysis of this case?

Well, it has to do with the...

effects of Conrad...

on what will eventually become

her idea taken from him

that he's going to kill himself,

and that all he cares about is doing it swiftly and quickly

and not botching it.

She's following his lead into a very dark place.

Probably the most common

adverse effect of antidepressants is nightmares.

So, this is just spot on.

She's clearly out of her mind, and so is he.

You can't look at one text message.

You have to look at the totality of their relationship.

You have somebody, Conrad Roy,

who has been suicidal for a very long time,

really, at this point in time, intent on killing himself.

She, if you look at her for a year and a half,

never wanted him to die. Didn't want him to kill himself.

What caused her to switch?

It struck me

that she was in an extremely abusive relationship.

There's this constant harassing of her

while he's not telling family.

And at one point toward the end,

Conrad tells her...

"The one thing that will make me hate you

is if you tell anyone that I'm suicidal."

And she listens.

Michelle got it all.

There's this huge pyramid of his misery

and at the bottom of it is sitting Michelle Carter

and nobody else.

Conrad told Michelle that his mother knew

that he was suicidal.

He actually screenshotted her, Michelle,

his laptop, of methods how to kill yourself.

Michelle says, "Well, didn't she say anything to you?"

And Conrad responded,

"No, she just looked at it and walked away."

What Conrad is doing is manipulating

and lying to Michelle, saying, "My mom even knows."

The whole story became deeper,

and the theme was running the exact opposite

of the DA's witch hunt.

In fact, both were victims of the psychiatric drugs.

What is a involuntary intoxication?

Well, by definition, it's an intoxication,

which means that

the neurochemistry of the brain has been disrupted.

And that this intoxication is observable

through thoughts, behaviors, activities.

They involve, in general, things like impulsivity,

impaired judgment...

And specifically, Dr. Breggin,

as to Michelle Carter, did you have an opinion

of whether or not she was involuntarily intoxicated?

-Yes. -And what is that opinion?

She was involuntarily intoxicated.

She was taking Prozac and she then switched to Celexa.

And are you able to pinpoint

about when she became involuntarily intoxicated?

Yes, on July 2nd,

she begins to help him go to heaven.

At this point, she has an involuntary intoxication

where she's not forming a criminal intent,

"I'm gonna harm him."

She's not doing something she thinks is criminal,

"This is bad."

She's thinking

that it's a good thing to help him die.

That she can mitigate the circumstances.

That she can then go and help his family.

And like anybody who's in a hypomanic state,

she gets very angry when she's disrupted.

This is now the way.

She's found the way to finally help.

Involuntary intoxication is a diagnosis that I never use,

and that most of the colleagues that I know don't use.

But that is using forensic psychiatry.

So, without, you know, without any consensus

by our profession that it's even real.

In some children and adolescents taking antidepressants,

it can be disinhibiting.

I wouldn't call it drastic, you know?

But, uh, if you become manic when you're on antidepressant,

that's pretty drastic, you know,

and that happens in a very small proportion of cases.

You may resume when you are ready, Miss Rayburn.

Thank you very much, Your Honor.

-Uh, good morning, sir. -Morning.

You would agree with me at the time

between July 2nd and July 12th, 2014,

the defendant was going to camp, correct?

- Yes. - Okay.

She was interacting with friends at times, correct?

- Yes. - She's seeking therapy

-and talking to her therapist, correct? -Yes.

And you would agree with me that the therapist describes her appearance

as good eye contact, well groomed, correct? Okay?

- Yeah. - All right.

Short-term memory intact. Judgment good. Correct?

-Behavior, no abnormalities, correct? -Yeah.

Her affect is appropriate.

Her short, uh, long-term memory's intact, correct?

-Yeah. -Her insight is good.

-Correct? -Yeah.

And you're now telling us that she didn't know right from wrong

at that same time?

Well, actually, she thought she was doing

absolutely the right thing.

You would agree with me, though,

that on July 10th into July 11th 2014,

the defendant is telling friends,

specifically Sam Boardman, that Conrad is missing.

- Correct? - Yes.

But at the same time, you would agree with me

-she's communicating with Conrad? -Yes.

She's telling people he's missing, she doesn't know where he is.

She's getting updates from the family.

All while speaking to him, correct?

Yes. It's very strange. I can't find a rational reason

why she would ever have been doing this.

I think it's part of a very confused, delusional state

that... Where she's coming in and out of, uh,

"What's happening? What am I doing?"

How about the rational reason

that she wanted to know how her friends would react

when he killed himself?

No. I can't imagine that would be motivating her

to be opening up this horrible, bizarre activity

she's involved in. I...

I mean, you would expect her not to do anything like that.

But she's saying she's concerned for him,

while at the same time talking to him.

Yeah. I think it's really crazy.

And in fact, Sam does, I would suggest to you,

she then shows concern. Correct?

- Well, of course, yeah. - Okay.

Focusing now on July 12th into the 13th. 9:48 PM.

To Sam: "I'm so fucking stupid.

The generator he got the other day...

I think that he... the noise I heard...

I just looked it up; they emit carbon monoxide.

I think he poisoned himself with it."

And so it goes, correct?

- That's actually a question. - Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Now, you would agree with me, sir,

that there were text messages between the defendant

and Conrad Roy about exactly how he was gonna kill himself.

-Weren't there? -Yeah. Absolutely.

Okay. So, her telling Sam,

"I think the noise that I heard, uh, I looked...

I think the generator he got today,

I think that was the noise I heard. I looked it up.

They can emit carbon monoxide."

She already knew that, didn't she?

- Yes. - Okay.

And now talking to Ally, she says, "Ha, ha, yeah.

But I don't know; he's in a bad place right now,"

talking to Con... about Conrad, correct?

Yes.

She's telling Ally he's in a bad place.

He's dead, sir, at that point.

Did you factor that in your opinion then?

The fact that she knows he's dead, and in saying, "Ha, ha, yeah.

But I don't know; he's in a bad place right now."

Did you factor that into your opinion?

Yes, I factored every...

every bit of this into my opinion, yes.

So, she's telling one person one thing

and other people other things, correct?

Yes, she is.

So now, the next morning,

July 13th, 2014 at 9:02, her mother texts her, correct?

Yes.

"Hi, Michelle. What are you doing?" Right?

Michelle responds, "I'm at home."

Mom says, "Doing what?"

Michelle responds, "Nothing, ha, ha."

Doesn't tell her mother anything about what's going on,

- does she? - No.

-She only tells her friends, correct? -Yes.

These same friends that she has been asking

to hang out with her for the past year

and who routinely don't hang out with her.

-Isn't that true? -Oh, I don't know that.

Would you factor it into your opinion,

the fact that these... the defendant wanted to hang out

with her friends and her friends didn't have time with her that summer?

Could that impact your opinion?

That it turned her into a crazy person

who transformed her character,

-became grandiose... -No.

...and encouraged a young man whom she loved

and had been working with a... again and again to...

to get better, that she turned on him

and started to encourage him to die?

No, I don't think so.

She's psychotic, deluded. She's disturbed.

Everything you're describing is why I concluded

she's got an involuntary intoxication.

-All right, just coming in. You ready? -Yep.

So far this morning we've been hearing from

Dr. Peter Breggin, that paints a very different picture

than what we saw last week in those messages.

And the biggest question here now is will Michelle Carter testify?

Are you gonna call Michelle to the stand tomorrow?

Uh. I have no comment. We're going to proceed tomorrow

with the continuation of the trial.

Part of the drama of this case

was the adult world confronting what teenagers are like.

All right, guys. Can you stop? You've already got her picture.

And I think for the parents it must be sort of impossible

to understand what happened,

'cause it's so far from what is, you know,

acceptable human behavior, what she did in the last few weeks.

And I think the biggest mystery of the story is not...

why Michelle Carter did what she did,

but what Michelle Carter thought she was doing.

What's really interesting about this case

is that we have this very detailed record

of what was said between them.

This detailed record of their minds coming together

and interacting with each other.

In the past we wouldn't have had that record.

All we would've had was a person commits suicide

and we're all left wondering what happened.

Are we talking about young psychopaths?

Are we talking about narcissistic personality disorders,

borderline disorders?

Are we just talking about young, troubled kids

who don't have a well-developed frontal cortex

and just don't have the self-awareness

and the ability to see what they're doing?

But now because we have this record of this dialogue

between them, we have this opportunity to see

what was going on inside their minds,

inside that thought process between the two of them.

The idea that this was a case where a girlfriend killed a boyfriend

is really weird.

The way that I read it is...

the relationship was much more Michelle's fantasy

and Michelle's idea than it was Conrad's.

Conrad was alternately kind of mean to her,

kind of sweet to her...

kind of negging her for most of the relationship.

They really weirdly connected on this slightly mean,

slightly competitive level that they both had.

They had this kind of game that they would play together.

They would finish each other's sentences,

they would play weird word games and free associations.

And it's, like, kind of sexy, kind of weird,

kind of exciting if you're a teenage boy.

They both sort of liked this kind of

brinkmanship with each other.

They talked a lot about

"Let's meet, let's hang out. When are we going to hang out?"

They'd come to the brink of seeing each other

and then they'd always back away.

So, their whole relationship was the text messages.

The fact that we now all live our lives

via smart phones

is completely central to this case.

It's every parent's worst nightmare.

You have two teenagers connecting in the most

cataclysmic possible way.

Conrad, he found someone

who he could confide these thoughts in.

And Michelle found this access to immediate sort of intimacy.

When people are communicating through text,

strange things can start to happen.

You don't necessarily experience the other person

as another person.

You can't see them, you can't hear them,

you can't see their body language.

You have this voice with you all day long

that will suddenly pop up and say things to you.

I think in some ways people experience that

as a voice in their head,

almost as if it's like an internal hallucination.

You're really interacting with these characters

inside your mind without really understanding,

on a more conscious, rational level,

these text messages are coming from another person

with their own life and their own thoughts

and their own feelings.

In some ways, the big moral failing from Michelle

has to do with an eerie inability to fully apprehend reality.

There's one level of the conversation

that is a kid that's gonna kill himself.

And then there's another level that's a romantic fantasy.

There is an amazing intensity to the messages

that's totally incommensurate with the relationship they had before.

And what I found is that there was all of these references

to different TV shows, to movies, to songs...

But by far, by far the most common source

for that kind of language was Glee.

Glee is a TV show that is set in an American high school

and the stars are Lea Michele and Cory Monteith,

who are not only the stars of the show

but were a couple in real life.

And Michelle was obsessed with Lea Michele.

So, often when she was writing to Conrad or writing about Conrad,

she would borrow from text that was in this TV show.

You are my first love.

And I want more than anything for you to be my last.

And I think she connected with Lea Michele

on kind of a profound level that went beyond

what a normal teen identifying with a star...

you know, might feel like.

A star of the popular show Glee found dead

in his hotel room in Vancouver. The body...

In 2013, Cory Monteith overdosed in a hotel room and died.

This was a year, basically, to the day,

before Conrad died.

The cast of Glee puts on a tribute episode.

Lea Michele sings a song in his honor

and everyone's devastated

because the character has died in the show.

So, it's an incredibly eerie piece of television, because...

you know that this actual actor OD'd in a hotel

somewhere in Canada, but in the world of the show,

this football quarterback has died tragically

and everyone is singing pop songs to mourn him.

And Michelle introduces that to Conrad in October 2013.

Michelle says, "I just want you to know how much I love you

and it really made me think of what it would be like if you weren't here."

Totally out of the blue from what was happening.

It's sort of the first moment where you realize that Michelle

has, like, a completely other story

that's going on that has nothing to do with Conrad specifically.

But the idea that she would be the person in Glee

who had a boyfriend who was the quarterback

who had sort of tragically died,

I think was kind of more real to her than it probably is to most people.

-I had it all planned out. -Now what?

-I don't know, something different. -Maybe something better.

I just... I don't think that that's possible.

He was my person.

One of the eerie parts of the text messages

that Michelle sent to her friends where she quotes from Lea Michele,

is that they don't all come from Glee;

they come from interviews that the real actress is giving

about her real dead boyfriend to real talk show hosts.

I literally lived every day of my life

feeling like the luckiest girl in the whole world.

I just... I just thought he was the greatest man.

This is weird. This is really weird.

I think it translates to that Michelle had little if any idea of who she was.

That she identified extremely strongly

with this other world, this other life.

Alice was a teammate of Michelle's

on a travel softball team in the spring of 2012.

They instantly became incredibly close.

They went to, uh, each other's houses,

they slept over, they took a team trip to Montreal

and when other, uh, kids on the team were going out to eat as a group,

they would kind of sneak off and eat together,

just the two of them.

It was an intense teen friendship

that was almost like a love affair for Michelle.

Kind of abruptly,

right around the time that Michelle met Conrad,

Alice cut off contact with her.

And in 2014, in the summer...

Michelle, for some reason, starts really missing Alice.

And this is all happening right around the time

that Conrad is really suicidal.

It seems to me that a lot of the emotional logic of the case

really has more to do with the friendship with Alice

than it has to do with the relationship with Conrad.

I called Alice and I said, you know,

"I want to interview you because it sounds like

Michelle was in love with you."

And I met Alice and her mother.

The reason they were meeting me was to refute exactly that story.

So, they were meeting to say,

"Michelle is a sociopath, and she made this all up.

There was never anything physical about the relationship."

And if I didn't feel for Michelle in any moment before that,

in that moment I felt...

a sympathy for how alone she was.

She had this desire for things to be more intense,

more like stories than they really were.

She didn't live in reality;

like, she lived in some kind of fantasy... I think.

But she's just not a well person, so...

How can you be that angry or how can you be that...

when someone is not...

She's not well.

That's all I say. She's not well.

The pattern that would happen in the last few weeks of Conrad's life

is Conrad would say, "I'm gonna do it tonight."

Then the next morning he would be alive.

Then a few days later he would say, "Okay, I'm ready to do it tonight.

I'm gonna do it," and then the next morning,

he would be alive.

July 12th, when Conrad dies,

there's a kind of reality flicker,

where it's not entirely clear that it's actually happened.

I'll tell you something really weird.

Five days before Conrad died, Michelle goes to a movie theater

and sees The Fault in Our Stars.

And at the climax of the movie,

the boy, Gus,

is dying in a gas station in a Jeep.

And he calls his girlfriend for help.

-Augustus. -Hazel Grace.

Hi. Oh, my God, hi. Hi. I love you.

And she calls the police and he gets into an ambulance.

So, it doesn't seem implausible to me

that there were other stories in Michelle's mind

that reminded her of what was happening at that moment.

And I think the question is whether or not

she was kind of writing some story in her head

or writing some movie that for some reason

had to end with him dying.

Or whether she literally has no idea what she's done.

What is obvious to me is that when

he really needed someone to understand how serious it was,

and to go over his head to the cops, to his mother,

she wasn't that person.

And that's her kind of tragic failing.

She, who wanted so badly to have a best friend

or someone she could sort of have this intense,

dyadic affair with,

had the opportunity to do that

with this kid who that night needed someone

to be his friend and to say, "You are being fucking crazy

and I'm calling the police." And...

she didn't do it.

"His death is my fault.

Like, honestly, I could've stopped him.

I was on the phone with him and he got out of the car

because it was working. And he got scared

and I fucking told him to get back in, Sam,

because I knew he would do it all over again the next day.

And I couldn't have him live that way, the way he was living, anymore.

I couldn't do it. I wouldn't let him."

Those were her words, Your Honor.

She says to her friend, "If I had done something,

if I had just told him that I loved him,

he would still be alive."

Your Honor, this is a suicide,

as I said in my opening statement, and I say now.

What we're dealing with is a suicide and not a homicide.

And this is the government's burden

to prove that it was a homicide, a manslaughter under the elements.

Proof, not by a probable cause,

not by clear and convincing evidence,

but proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you go through and you look at who actually created

this suicidal situation,

he brought her, with all of her baggage,

along for this sad journey of his to eventually take his own life.

Despite his issues,

Conrad Roy was a very self-aware young man.

He knew when he needed help.

You know what he said was the one reason

that he wanted to live? His family.

Before the defendant got her hooks into him

and started telling him to die every day, he was hopeful.

This is a gentleman who was sadly subjected

to domestic violence.

In fact, he tells that he had daily intrusive thoughts

of witnessing domestic violence.

Those are his words he's telling his therapist

in the counselors in the records, Your Honor.

During the days leading up to this, Your Honor,

he told her, "I'm scared. I don't have it in me.

Another day wouldn't hurt."

Every time he came up with an excuse not to do it,

she kicked his feet out right from under him

and told him why it didn't matter, why he still needed to die.

Mr. Roy himself stated to Michelle Carter,

"I want to die."

Straight up. Those words. "I want to die."

To turn around and say she's bullying him

or she got him to do something he didn't want to do,

he's asking her, "You want to help?"

His words. "You want to help?"

He doesn't tell her, "Stop this.

Don't call me, lose my number, stop texting me, block call,"

nothing of the like. He continues to use her

for his support to carry out his plan.

He goes down to K-mart.

He doesn't do a U-turn. Not seeking any help.

Police department down the road a half a mile.

He has his cell phone with him. What's he do?

He actually... In the phone records, he calls Michelle Carter.

The first phone call right there, he calls her.

He doesn't call 911.

Doesn't call anybody else, he calls Michelle.

I suggest why? Because he knows

that she is encouraging and supporting his plan.

She created the harm, Your Honor,

when she told him to get back in the car.

He was scared. She knows he's gonna die

and she says, "I could've done something to stop it,

and if I had, he would still be alive today."

She, by her own admission, she caused his death.

She knew at that moment he did not want to die.

The Commonwealth is conflating this idea of "he was scared"

as "he didn't want to do it."

That's what they're doing; they're saying he... he told...

Michelle told a friend that Conrad got out of the car

and he was scared because it was working.

So, Conrad apparently knew it was working

and yet chose to get back in.

But because he was scared or afraid,

they want to basically replace that word,

that somehow, therefore, after that,

by going back in the car, that wasn't his own decision.

He chose to get in that car.

He chose to breathe in the fumes.

There's no evidence that Michelle Carter

has any physical actions whatsoever in this case.

It was all of his physical activity.

Did he get back in the car? Yes.

But she was the cause of that, Your Honor;

she ordered him back in that car knowing what would happen.

It's a new day and age, Your Honor.

And the phones that we have now

allow you to be virtually present with somebody.

People fall in love on the Internet and via text.

People bully via text and the Internet.

And you can encourage someone to die via text

and you can commit a crime via text.

She absolutely knew what she was doing.

She absolutely knew it was wrong and she absolutely

caused the death of this 18-year-old boy.

And I ask you to find her guilty.

This world is sick today, in my opinion.

No one has any morals.

Lack of character.

Uh. I just find it... I just find it very troubling today.

Because the right thing to do would've been for her

to go get him help.

He wanted to get out of the car, I believe. He did get out.

She told him to get back in, quote, unquote, and do it.

I'm sorry, but she... she deserves manslaughter.

Absolutely.

I honestly think it was foul what she did.

She really shouldn't have done that. I mean, if you really love somebody,

you don't encourage them to kill themselves.

That's just... That's absolutely crazy.

It's kind of like murder.

it's basically murder, is how I see it in my eyes.

It's basically murder.

She was pretty much saying, "Just do it."

But there's nothing illegal about that.

And then didn't he stop,

and then she said, "What are you doing?

Get back in the car. You already have it all set up.

You know, just end it already."

Wow.

But that's more of a moral thing, I think.

But there's nothing illegal about it.

-There's actually nothing wrong with it. -No, no.

She's not guilty. She didn't do anything illegal.

-No, she didn't... -It was wrong, but it's not illegal.

That's like me telling you to jump off a bridge.

-If you jump off it, is it my fault? -Yeah.

She would've said to him, "Jump... Jump over the bridge."

He would've done it, so therefore it's...

it is her fault.

How can this woman be held responsible for something that

she in essence did not do

and he had free will over his actions?

It's mind boggling to me.

If she was telling him to rob a bank and he robbed a bank,

is she responsible for this when he went in and...

and did those actions voluntarily? I don't know.

I just don't see how you can punish this girl

the rest of her life for this.

My wife and I talk about this and, you know,

she thinks in one direction and I think in the other.

That's 'cause we're married, go figure.

She thinks it's more the responsibility of the victim

than the responsibility of the... the young lady, you know?

And I can see her point.

I think it was more immoral or, uh, unethical, you know,

to not report that to somebody.

I don't know. I guess it's on the judge,

how he's gonna... how he's gonna rule it.

Certainly wouldn't want to date her next.

Breaking news: The judge has reached a verdict

in the Michelle Carter manslaughter trial.

This is a highly anticipated decision of whether Michelle Carter is guilty

of involuntary manslaughter in her boyfriend, Conrad Roy's death.

-Come on, get out of there. -Come on.

Get out of there.

Judge Lawrence Moniz took just two days to decide this.

He will announce it at 11:00 AM.

Michelle Carter's fate now in the hands of the judge,

who will render the ultimate verdict.

And at the center of this trial,

whether it's a crime to tell someone to commit suicide.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon, Your Honor.

The law does not require

that any explanation as to a verdict be given.

Nonetheless, I am of the opinion

that some explanation of my verdicts is warranted.

I have essentially divided the evidence in this case

into three components.

The first component

comprises roughly the period of June 29th, 2014

through the ending of the text messages

between Miss Carter and Mr. Roy on or about July 12th, 2014.

The second period commences immediately thereafter,

through July 13th, 2014.

This court first finds

that the Commonwealth has proven

beyond a reasonable doubt

that the actions taken by Miss Carter

as to the period from June 30th to July 12th

constituted wanton and reckless conduct by her,

and serious disregard of the well-being of Mr. Roy.

The Commonwealth has not proven, as to that time period,

that said reckless or wanton behavior

caused the death of Mr. Roy.

Mr. Roy was struggling with his issues

and took significant actions of his own.

He secured the generator. He secured the water pump.

He researched how to fix the generator.

He located his vehicle in an unnoticeable area

and commenced his attempt by starting the pump.

However, he breaks that chain of self-causation

by exiting the vehicle.

He takes himself out of the toxic environment

that it has become.

When Miss Carter realizes that Mr. Roy has exited the truck,

she instructs him to get back into the truck,

which she has reason to know is or is becoming

a toxic environment inconsistent with human life.

This court finds where one's action

create a life-threatening risk to another,

there is a duty to take reasonable steps

to alleviate the risk.

The reckless failure to fulfill this duty

can result in a charge of manslaughter.

Knowing that Mr. Roy is in the truck,

knowing the condition of the truck,

Miss Carter takes no action

in the furtherance of the duty that she has created

by instructing Mr. Roy to get back into the truck.

Consequently, this court has found that the Commonwealth

has proven beyond a reasonable doubt

that Miss Carter's actions and also her failure to act

where she had a self-created duty to Mr. Roy,

constituted each and all wanton and reckless conduct.

And this court further finds that the Commonwealth

has proven beyond a reasonable doubt

that said conduct caused the death of Mr. Roy.

Miss Carter, please stand.

This court, having reviewed the evidence

and applied the law thereto,

now finds you guilty on the indictment charging you

with the involuntary manslaughter of the person Conrad Roy III.

You may be seated.

That verdict is now recorded and it is in writing as well.

This matter will stand continued to August 3rd

for a sentencing hearing. Thank you very much.

All rise.

Very, very disappointed with the outcome,

however, because the case is still pending,

beyond saying I'm disappointed,

I'm not gonna comment any further, so thank you all.

-Do you have an appeal plan? -Are you surprised though?

Good afternoon.

Since we still have to return to court for the sentencing phase of this case,

I will keep my comments brief.

Although we are very pleased with the verdict,

in reality, there are no winners here today.

Conrad, an 18-year-old boy, is dead, and the young woman...

a young woman is now convicted of causing his death.

Two families have been torn apart

and will be affected by this for years to come.

This was a unique case

that dealt with a lot of important issues in our society today.

But in the end, the case was really about

one young man and one young woman

who were brought together by tragic circumstances.

What do you want the sentence to be?

What do you want the sentence to be?

Are you satisfied with what happened though?

Do you feel like you get some relief?

Mr. Roy, what kind of relief are you feeling right now?

- Come on. - Careful behind you.

Would you like to say anything to the judge?

Justice for Conrad.

-Hey guys. tell us how you feel? -No comment.

Come on, get the door unlocked.

Can you tell us what you think about this verdict?

Can you just tell us what you think about the verdict?

Do you feel like justice was served here?

Watch out. Excuse me.

There are many verdicts that you'll see,

whether I've been involved in them or, you know,

many cases that I haven't been involved, you'll say,

"Well, this prosecution really has the law on their side.

They have the facts on their side.

I don't think that that was the case here.

I think, you know, people...

There are plenty of people who are still scratching their head,

thinking, "How is this a crime?"

How could the judge do what he did and find her guilty on this evidence?

In rendering his verdict, he went so far as to say

up until the point in time that Conrad was in the truck

with the water pump going, it was on Conrad Roy;

Michelle would not have been found guilty.

Then it turned on a dime and said, however,

when he got out of his truck, she had a self-created duty,

knowing that he was getting back into the car,

to prevent it when she wasn't physically present.

Um, that's when it obviously went downhill and that was, uh,

was somewhat of a surprise to hear him saying that.

The huge question at the heart of this case

is whether Michelle told Conrad to get back in the truck.

It's a big question, because there's...

there's meta-data for the phone calls.

But there's no recordings.

So, there's absolutely no way to know whether

Michelle telling him to get back in the truck

was an event that took place, whether it was something

that she wanted people to think had happened.

Whether it was like a manifestation of her guilt.

Why did Michelle wait two months to tell Samantha Boardman,

"I told him to get back in the truck"?

I don't think we can know that Michelle's story is at all true.

It's not... I don't think it's a true story.

There's no text she said it.

There's no recording of a phone that she said it.

Michelle frequently made contradictory statements.

One of the most striking was that she told her friends

that she had never had sex.

Then she told a friend that she had had sex with Conrad.

Then she told her friend that Conrad had raped her.

That he had forced himself on her.

What's scary about Michelle's description of being assaulted

is that her friends don't believe her.

That there's a sense that, like,

Michelle says some stuff that's true

and some stuff that's not true and everyone kind of knows it.

I didn't see the DA bringing that up and saying,

"Well, Michelle was raped by Conrad.

How do we know she was raped by Conrad?

She actually told somebody in a text."

The DA said again and again

she was a liar who couldn't be trusted,

because the DA was obsessed with not making her sympathetic

without realizing she was undermining her own case.

But this is the constant twisting by the DA of data

so that it became impossible to disentangle.

Most of America believes that she texted him this in writing.

According to prosecutors,

Carter even texting him to get back in the truck

when he has second thoughts.

And when I meet people in airports and I'd say to them, uh,

"Hey folks, do you know about this...

this, uh, lady, uh, you know,

who supposedly told her boyfriend to kill himself?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. She... She texted her to death."

I said, "Would you believe that there was never anything written down?

We have no written record."

"No, Doc."

And people get mad.

They say things like fake news again.

They we're just cherry picking when to believe Michelle

and when not to believe Michelle.

We are appealing the verdict,

and we'll appeal it for as long as it takes.

To now treat this juvenile

as, uh, somebody who committed a homicide,

I think is unfair, unjust and illegal,

and I think eventually the court system will see it.

Here's Michelle coming in right now.

Keep your head up. Love you, Michelle.

Your Honor, the Commonwealth is asking this court

to impose a sentence of not less than seven,

no more than 12 years in state prison.

Your Honor, as the evidence proved,

the facts in this case are egregious.

There is no earthly reason why Conrad Henri Roy

should not be here today with his loving family,

enjoying life,

sharing his many gifts with the world.

But he is not, and the reason he is not here

is the defendant, Michelle Carter.

Her actions killed Conrad Roy.

She ended his life to better her own.

For all of these reasons, Your Honor,

the Commonwealth respectfully asks this court

to impose our recommendation. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Flynn.

Who speaks for the defendant?

Mr. Cataldo, do you have any evidence to present?

Your Honor, I will summarize by saying, as this court is well aware,

we're guided with the idea in the juvenile justice system

that the goal is not punitive, but yet rehabilitative.

Miss Carter was 17 years old at the time.

We have a body of law from both the United States Supreme Court

as well as the SJC

about the adolescent brain development,

what a court can consider on sentencing.

And there is a clear body that says

adolescents are not as culpable as full-grown adults.

Miss Carter will have to live with the consequences of this

for the rest of her life,

with the publicity that this case has gained.

Um, that will be substantial.

I think treatment is appropriate in this particular case for Miss Carter.

Miss Carter does regret what happened.

She also sent a letter to the probation department

where she accepts responsibility for her actions, her words,

her letter. The court has reviewed all this.

Your Honor, I suggest that she is not a danger to the public

and in the remedial system, the juvenile system, uh,

probation is appropriate. Thank you very much, Your Honor.

Thank you very much.

All rise.

This court is now in session. Be seated, please.

No talking while court's in session.

You need to understand, all of you,

that this court has not nor should it

allow any emotional response to this case to enter

into its determinations in any way.

Everyone is entitled to a decision devoid of any emotion

with respect to this case.

Now I know that there has been significant media coverage of this case.

I assure you that I have steadfastly avoided

any of that.

But by the end of today people will wonder why

what has happened has happened.

People may wonder why all of this has happened.

I have not found

that Miss Carter's age or level of maturity

or even her mental illness

have any significant impact on her actions.

She was a bright young lady, did well in school,

and I am satisfied that she was mindful of the actions

for which she now stands convicted.

On the other hand, even if the age and the maturity level

of the person at the time that they have committed the crime

doesn't gre... doesn't garner a great deal of significance,

the fact that they are still of that young age

offers a greater promise of rehabilitation.

Miss Carter, please stand.

Miss Carter, a guilty finding having entered on the indictment

charging you with the involuntary manslaughter

of Conrad Roy III

now sentences you to two and a half years

in the Bristol County House of Correction.

Fifteen months of said sentence shall be deemed a committed sentence

and the balance thereof shall be suspended

until August 1st of 2022.

That is the sentence of the court. You may be seated.

Mr. Cataldo, do you wish to be heard?

I do, Your Honor.

- May I approach? - You may.

Your Honor, what I have just filed

is a motion to stay the execution of the sentence.

- Let me take a look at it, please. - Okay, thank you.

I guess we have all come to know each other a little bit.

I anticipated this motion, Mr. Cataldo,

and I took some significant time

to review the case of Commonwealth versus Hodge.

which is found at 380 Mass 851.

The conviction may be reversible, but the time spent in prison is not.

I am satisfied that there is an issue worthy of presentation

to the appellate court.

In fact, this court

believes that the wisdom of the appellate court

will be of instruction now and going forward.

I don't know what the appeals court will do.

I don't know if it goes to the SJC, what the SJC will do.

But I am satisfied that a grant of a stay

through the Massachusetts court system only

is warranted.

This order will not encompass anything with respect

to the federal system.

Is there anything further, Mr. Cataldo or Mr. Madeira?

One minute please.

We're all set. Thank you.

And we are adjourned. Thank you very much.

All rise.

I don't understand how a month ago

it's a guilty verdict giving the family hope

that there might be some type of justice,

to just have her go home tonight and have a nice meal.

I just don't get it. Like I said, it's saying to me...

I don't have a law degree, I don't have...

But it saying as long I'm under 18,

I can bully anyone.

Are you pleased with the stay?

Very much so, yes. Yes.

You have to remember, people were totally split about this case.

So, the reason that it's so interesting to me,

like, the difference between the conviction and the sentencing,

is that it expresses the complete kind of craziness

that this case drives people to in terms of trying to come up

with one objective conclusion of what should happen to Michelle Carter.

If this appeal lingers to 2022,

conceivably she will never serve time in jail?

Conceivably, yes.

It's like you were responsible, it was involuntary manslaughter.

But you can basically never go to jail?

I would be surprised if she serves time.

I have reviewed the Commonwealth's motion

and have considered the arguments just presented to the court.

The court now allows the Commonwealth's motion

to revoke the stay of sentence.

Miss Carter will now be taken into custody.

This matter is adjourned. Thank you very much.

All rise.