Comment by reader5000 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reader5000 | Hacker News Reader

Effectively it looks like the guy was looking for a suicide-buddy. Initially she told him to get help, but he kept pestering her about wanting to commit suicide. So she helped him through it in a non-material way. That's one interpretation, and there's nothing criminal about that. Just a poor decision from the judge here.

Reminiscent of a case from years ago where roommates secretly filmed a roommate having a gay encounter, and the roommate killed himself on finding out. I don't get how a person committing suicide in a non-intoxicated state is anybody's fault but their own.

I guess you could argue if you find a drunk person and tell them to do something reckless, but none of these cases seem to fit that.

Why differentiate between intoxication and mental illness? Surely someone with severe enough mental illness that they're on the brink of suicide is much more suggestible than someone who is drunk.

IIRC, some articles frame this as a romantic relationship. That sort of involvement tends to give more than normal sway.

Desiring someone else's esteem or romantic affection should not be considered sufficient to make you their mindless thrall in the eyes of the law. The defendant was a juvenile peer with no legal, physical, familial, or economic control over the victim. She was just a horrible person he found attractive and persuasive.

There is a lot of space between mindless thrall in the eyes of the law and wholly irrelevant to the case.

> secretly filmed a roommate having a gay encounter, and the roommate killed himself on finding out

I feel strongly that nonconsensual sexual filming of people where they have an expectation of privacy ought to be an offence.

Well, she is not a licensed and trained therapist, so maybe she shouldn't be the one prescribing life-ending treatments on the whims of her patient.

"My friend asked for a heart transplant. Never-mind that I'm not a doctor, I did the surgery anyway. Not my fault I have a corpse on my dinner table."

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