Bizarre, Criminal law, Free Speech

Former Boston College Student Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter After Encouraging Her Former Boyfriend to Commit Suicide

A smiling couple sit on a bench, posing for a photo

Over the years, we have discussed the prosecution of people who encourage friends or strangers to commit suicide. I have raised free speech concerns over prior prosecutions in the ambiguous line often drawn by prosecutors. The most recent case of Inyoung You, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter last week after repeatedly telling her boyfriend, Alexander Urtula, to kill himself. Both were students at Boston College and had a tumultuous 18 month relationship.

The couple met at Boston College and police say that You was highly abusive to Urtule. Her calls for his suicide reportedly began after she learned that he had met with his former girlfriend.

In a case similar to that of the Michele Carter prosecution in Massachusetts, You encouraged Urtula to kill himself. This case, however, is even worse with You sending a “barrage” of more than 75,000 text messages, including repeated calls for him to kill himself. In one text to the 22-year-old, she told him “do everyone a favor and go f**king kill yourself, you’re such a f**king stupid ass worthless s**t.”  Urtule proceeded to jump off the top of a building just hours before his graduation with his family from New Jersey waiting to watch him walk across the stage.

Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins said that You was “physically, verbally, and psychologically abusive” toward Urtula and the “abuse became more frequent and more powerful, and more demeaning, in the days and hours leading up to” his death. She stressed that she was “aware of his spiraling depression and suicidal thoughts brought on by her abuse. Yet, she persisted.”

Caitlin Grasso, an assistant district attorney, said that You used her iPhone to track Urtula’s location and was on the roof when he jumped around 8:30 a.m. He was scheduled to graduate at 10:00 a.m.

You later fled to her native South Korea and reportedly maintained that she was on the roof to try to stop him.

You’s guilty plea comes with an agreement that she will undergo mental health treatment and do community service. In addition, she may not profit from any portrayal of the case over the next 10 years.

You’s conduct is clearly disgusting and reprehensible. My concern in these cases is how such prosecutions could be used to criminalize speech related to suicide. Many advocate for the right to die and often share information on ways to killing oneself with the least amount of pain. Moreover, there are concerns about people who engage in reckless or hyperbolic speech.  There has been a long debate over the culpability of people who routinely yell up to people on ledges or bridges to jump. Historically, such horrific conduct has been treated as an exercise of free speech or at least not criminally culpable in any subsequent suicide. The problem is that free speech demands “bright lines” and this standard could not be more murky.

It is hard to raise such concerns in the context of this type of case. The loss to the Urtula family is unimaginable. The trauma of learning of Alexander’s suicide as they waited to watch him graduate must have been overwhelming. One would hope that this plea could bring even a small degree of solace for the family. However, we need to address the implications of these prosecutions and how to define this crime to avoid a broader criminalization of speech.

 

80 thoughts on “Former Boston College Student Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter After Encouraging Her Former Boyfriend to Commit Suicide”

  2. In my opinion; Inyoung You knew exactly what she was doing, she knew that the end result of her intentional verbal abuse was going to be the death of Alexander Urtula by suicide, Inyoung You is a criminally abusive immoral person and her actions should have earned her her some serious jail time.

      1. mespo727272 asked, “Would you convict her of attempted manslaughter if the suitor rejected the suggestion and told her to … er … buzz off?”

        There is no such thing as “attempted manslaughter” so no I wouldn’t convict her of that.

        I don’t think that’s the

          1. SW:

            “There is no such thing as “attempted manslaughter” so no I wouldn’t convict her of that.

            I don’t think that’s the … question you wanted to ask.”

            **********************************

            I come home. You’re in bed with my significant other. I am legally provoked and in the heat of passion, I fire but only wound you. That’s attempted manslaughter in Virginia:

            § 18.2-26. Attempts to commit felonies other than Class 1 felony offenses; how punished.
            Except as provided in § 18.2-25, every person who attempts to commit an offense that is a felony shall be punished as follows:

            (1) If the felony attempted is punishable by a maximum punishment of life imprisonment or a term of years in excess of twenty years, an attempt thereat shall be punishable as a Class 4 felony.

            (2) If the felony attempted is punishable by a maximum punishment of twenty years’ imprisonment, an attempt thereat shall be punishable as a Class 5 felony.

            (3) If the felony attempted is punishable by a maximum punishment of less than twenty years’ imprisonment, an attempt thereat shall be punishable as a Class 6 felony.

            That’s exactly the question you can’t answer, so yeah I wanted to ask it.

    2. While I sympathize, when we begin to define moral behavior as “illegal” we enter dangerous territory. I would rather that society finds ways to decimate the lives of such individuals within the boundaries of existing law. The ancient Greeks used 10 years of ostracism. I wish we could just ostracize this woman completely, a singularly lonely and isolated life imposed voluntarily by society is preferable to government funded jail.

      1. Alma Carman wrote, “when we begin to define moral behavior as “illegal” we enter dangerous territory”

        I think I understand your sentiment; but, we don’t define “moral behavior” as illegal, we define immoral behavior as illegal.

  3. I’ve told this to my son from his earliest years. You can’t judge whether a person or animal is nice based on how good looking they are. The outside has no connection to what’s inside.

    Judge by action.

  4. Inyoung You might be a psychopath. Her behavior was clearly vicious and relentless. Alexander Urtula must be absolutely heartbroken.

    This was one of those infamous beauty and the beast relationships, with a gender reversal. Women can, indeed, do vicious, terrible things, just like men can. “Believe all women”? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t believe any human who was a stranger without evidence. In light of the text messages, I suspect she was on that roof cheering his suicide, the harpy.

    Parents worry their son or daughter might get in a relationship with a terrible person. This tragedy was a parent’s worse nightmare.

    In such abusive, manipulative relationships, so often no matter what parents, friends, or family says, the victim clings to the abuser. So many times battered women, for example, refuse to leave the man who eventually kills them. Man or woman, the victim makes excuses. They believe this is all they deserve. A skilled psychopath can slowly get their claws in, manipulating in steps, until the victim arrives at a low that would have been inconceivable to them at any other time.

    I am no legal scholar, and so do not know if urging someone to commit suicide meets the standard of incitement of violence or manslaughter. I’ll let the courts handle that. But it was morally reprehensible. I believe she will face a reckoning one day. She cannot escape herself, or her own character. To be so morally bereft as to do such a thing must be a very nasty, dark place for a mind to live.

    My prayers and heart go out to Urtula’s family and true friends.

  5. So she pleads guilty to a criminal act that resulted in the death of an individual. No prison time. Had he killed her for the abuse instead, I doubt he would have gotten off with a similar sentence. Had he taken her with him, it would have been murder/suicide. I do not understand sentencing guidelines, at all.

  6. Social norms are essential to modern civilization, and cannot always depend upon “the law” for upholding them. The epoch we are suffering now (which began with anyone-can-publish) could be described as the ascendency of negative thinking. The freedom of speech I’m most committed to defending is speech which brings positive-thinking to any situation, opportunity or problem.

    I’m not interested in protecting flaming, scapegoating, doxxing, Westboro Baptist public obscenities, character assassinations, nor deceptive infowarfare / conspiracy theories. I’m looking for ways to deter these (short of government censorship) though all the other mechanisms of upholding standards of conduct.

    I challenge JT, someone who benefits daily from the highly structured communication standards of the Courtroom, to say something that shows Freedom of Speech comes with responsibilities.

    1. Pbinca,
      “Social norms are essential to modern civilization, and cannot always depend upon “the law” for upholding them.”

      Yes. It would be an oppressive, suffocating society if it did.

      “Freedom of Speech comes with responsibilities.”

      Absolutely. It is a vital element of self-governance. And, a good and worthy challenge for the good Professor.

      A hint of that responsibility, from Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder:

      “She thought: Americans won’t obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he has to boss himself. Why (she thought), when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn’t anyone else who as a right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good.

      Her whole mind seemed to be lighted up by the thought. This is what it means to be free. It means, you have to be good. “Our father’s God, author of liberty–“The laws of Nature and Nature’s God endow you with the right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God’s law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free” (76).

  8. Murder is a racist meme anyway. Under the Democrat’s Broke Back Better legislation, all homicides will be ruled as late-term abortions. Robbery will be recategorized as transfer payments. All ID’s are just Jim Crow racism, unless you’re using them as vaccine passports–then they’re mandatory. Inflation will no longer be inflation–it will be virtual growth, so show some gratitude dammit.

    Parents will no longer be parents. Civics teachers and sociology professors will assume that role. Parents will just pay for it and change the diapers.

    Vote Democrat–or else.

      1. Oh, geez. Goofy website didn’t update right. I thought it ate my first reply! Sorry for the double post!

  9. Wonder how Inyoung You Who would have acted after receiving a tax free cashiers check for $1 million dollars.

    In this episode Detective Dan Howell is returning an escaped convict who wishes revenge on Howell and gives the convict an opportunity to free himself and run loose on a train.

  10. If people go to a better place when they die, then why not do them a favor by killing them to help them get to a better place? They’ll appreciate it.

  12. Offensive speech needs the most protection….but not on a blog about free speech.

  13. What about the utterance or writing of racial slurs that do not injure or hurt anyone?

    1. yes, what about them. Free speech is the freedom to speak. Hate crime legislation is unconstitutional for that very reason. If we find this woman guilty it must not be because of what she said but in the use of actions to manipulate someone. That is the fine line – can the utterance of a forbidden word cause actual damage or just a bad feeling, where does that speech move from sound to action?

  14. My concern in these cases is how such prosecutions could be used to criminalize speech related to suicide

    This sentence could have stopped at “prosecutions” What is the purpose of prosecutions? The overarching purpose is public safety. If that goal is not in sight, then it is nothing but prosecutorial masturbation. It feels good. Or the sentence can carry on and just have a blank where “suicide” goes.

    Some say You is responsible. My limited experience with those that have committed suicide, rule out suggestibility. People so deep in the grips of their personal reality, that suicide is a viable solution, will make it happen, regardless of positive or negative reinforcement.

    What to do with You?

    I fail to see how her prosecution moves the needle in the number of suicides. This story represents a data point so close to zero, that it is almost impossible to decern it from zero.

  15. However, we need to address the implications of these prosecutions and how to define this crime to avoid a broader criminalization of speech.

    Cf.

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
    —The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

    Religious organizations, the press, even right to assemble, all have guardrails, i.e. peaceably assemble. There comes with assembly responsibilities, just like the press and religious organizations have responsibilities. You seem to elevate free speech to an idolatrous state, as if speech could have no consequences on a people. Of course they do just like cars, knives, sticks and slingshots. Speech can be injurious, have an effect of force, and can create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils as we see in this woman.

    The Courts seem to agree:

    Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919); Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).

    You have told us time and again that you were raised Catholic and later walked away from it. Thats your choice. However, you have taken the tact of creating politics, and clearly texts from politics, as holy writ. Even the US Constitution has had to be amended. You have hoisted free speech onto a virtual altar in the sky, pontificating as you do as if these texts created infallible dogmas. This is ironic given your documented history of mocking religious leaders for doing the same.

    The US Constitution is an imperfect document written at a time by men of Faith for a nation of believers in religious principles and morality, neither of which permeate our nation today. The Constitution is dross if the people have rejected the very principles that moved the Founding Fathers to create this nation, i.e. natural law.

    See:

    Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47
    Argued: January 9, 10, 1919
    Decided: March 3, 1919
    Affirmed.
    Opinion, Holmes:

    We admit that, in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. Aikens v. Wisconsin, 195 U.S. 194, 205, 206. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force. Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U.S. 418, 439. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.

    1. You seem to elevate free speech to an idolatrous state, as if speech could have no consequences on a people.

      Please change your perspective a bit.

      We all get a little intellectually lazy when discussing “Rights”

      Pay heed to the Founders and the Bill of Rights. That term, “BoR”, was a street slang moniker, attached to first 10 amendments. But it is really a list of prohibited actions. Prohibited to protect the people from the vast power of the Government.

      Thinking ‘speech having consequences on a people’ is a little bit backwards.

      Government using speech as a tool to control the actions of the people, is just one of the markers of a tyrannical government. So is is not so much as speech having some super power, but rather Prohibiting Government from using speech as weapon against the people, is a super power of the people. Hence anytime the govt seeks to gain power over the people through punishing the population using their own speech, must survive strict scrutiny. And govt actions must deliver some overpowering good the masses.

      1. Please change your perspective a bit.

        Be happy to do so if provided good arguments against mine

        We all get a little intellectually lazy when discussing “Rights”

        If this is your example of intellectual arguments then…..

        Thinking ‘speech having consequences on a people’ is a little bit backwards.

        Youre repeating yourself and have failed to provide me a reason, never mind you addressing the arguments I did provide, namely Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47

        Try again. Be persuasive. Dont be another Sam

        1. Its not really supporting free speech. But rather supporting the constitutional limits on Government. From those limitations, a wide array of freedoms grow.

          Another way to look at it. Speech is hard to define. Only the people at the smallest forms of govt can do that. Family, Church, community. When govt attempts to govern wide swaths of the population, the only default position is universal control. Tyranny. SCOTUS using the 14th amendment to expand their jurisdiction far beyond the ability of the federal govt, as led to mischief that federalism is designed to control

          1. I mentioned earlier natural law.

            Sir William Blackstone, wrote the once famous Commentaries on the English Laws. It was required reading for attorneys at one time. Blackstone’s contributions were formidable as to the formation and development of American law from legal education to the common law. Blackstone’s teachings on natural law and English Law were foundational wrt the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

            Here is Blackstone on natural law:

            Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.

            As stated, the Founding Fathers wrote the Founding Documents of our nation with natural law infused through and through. The beginning of the Declaration of Independence sets the narrative:

            We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

            I am a product of a Jesuit education, so it is no surprise that I reference Jesuit American Scholar, Fr. John Courtney Murray, SJ, and his classic We Hold These Truths:

            The force for unity inherent in this tradition was of decisive importance in what concerns the problem of pluralism. Because it was conceived in the tradition of natural law the American Republic was rescued from the fate, still not overcome, that fell upon the European nations in which Continental Liberalism, a deformation of the liberal tradition, lodged itself, not least by the aid of the Lodges. There have never been “two Americas,” in the sense in which there have been, and still are, “two Frances,” “two Italys,” “two Spains.” Politically speaking, America has always been one. The reason is that a consensus was once established, and it still substantially endures, even in the quarters where its origins have been forgotten….

            The philosophy of the Bill of Rights was also tributary to the tradition of natural law, to the idea that man has certain original responsibilities precisely as man, antecedent to his status as citizen. These responsibilities are creative of rights which inhere in man antecedent to any act of government; therefore they are not granted by government and they cannot be surrendered to government. They are as inalienable as they are inherent. Their proximate source is in nature, and in history insofar as history bears witness to the nature of man; their ultimate source, as the Declaration of Independence states, is in God, the Creator of nature and the Master of history…

            The American Bill of Rights is not a piece of eighteenth century rationalist theory; it is far more the product of Christian history. Behind it one can see, not the philosophy of the Enlightenment but the older philosophy that had been the matrix of the common law. The “man” whose rights are guaranteed in the face of law and government is, whether he knows it or not, the Christian man, who had learned to know his own personal dignity in the school of Christian faith….

            https://www.library.georgetown.edu/woodstock/murray/whtt_c1_1954d

            Inyoung You demonstrates the obvious: she is bereft of knowledge of natural law, which is not surprising since our nation walked away from natural law decades ago, starting with Earl Warren. Our universities today are not focused on an America consensus, like the Founding Fathers were vis a vis natural law. Our nation wallows in chaos because we no longer have an American consensus. There is no longer an attempt to embrace E Pluribus Unum. Democrats have demonstrated they believe in strong arm politics like Fidel Castro. Democrats, as witnessed in Kamala Harris and Joe Biden embracing ANTIFA BLM Anarchists leave no room for doubt they dismiss en total the principles imbued in the Founding Documents. Professor Turley is a fundamentalist of sorts, elevating the US Constitution as an infallible document. He clearly has no use for the principles the Founding Fathers embraced when authoring these very documents, i.e. natural law

            Written laws created by legislatures, will never be able to govern, prevent or deter every possible type of evil human behavior. Politicians on both sides of the aisle (e.g. Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, GHW Bush, Clinton, Obama, Trump, Biden) have handlers who dedicate themselves to getting around the written law. If their hearts were governed by natural law, we would not be witnessing the collapse of the United States. Ditto for American Legislators, Judges and people in general.

            You noted that the Founding Fathers were largely Deist. Not true. Some were, others were not. Additionally some accepted / rejected certain religious teachings in early life but flip flopped as they aged. The argument of deism is a canard the atheists today claim time and again to diminish the incredible influences that religion had on our nation as far back with Sir William Blackstone. John Adams was a devout Christian. Putting this aside, even up until Abraham Lincoln, our historical national leaders led the nation with natural law written in their hearts, and cognizant of God, our Creator, i.e. Declaration of Independence. George Washington’s presidential texts and speeches are rich with references to natural law and God.

            Alexander Urtula was a broken young man, likely Axis II Mental Illness just like Inyoung You. Both were steeped in American woke religion dogmas, lost to their own appetites, which is to say neither saw how their behaviors were divorced from all the truths the Founding Fathers took for granted: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights

            It seems to me that Justice Holmes was aware that free speech also has its limits, i.e, clear and present danger. Ordinarily, as an immigrant, I would tell people to brush off insults, focus on their goals, and be the person their detractors would bristle on learning they have become an example of the American Dream. Hateful speech is overrated. However, for someone like Alexander Urtula, it was clear and present danger. Inyoung You deserves a far more severe sentence.

            Fin

            1. Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769)
              SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE

              INTRODUCTION, SECTION 2
              Of the Nature of Laws in General

              Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.

              https://lonang.com/library/reference/blackstone-commentaries-law-england/bla-002/

            2. “Their proximate source is in nature, and in history insofar as history bears witness to the nature of man; their ultimate source, as the Declaration of Independence states, is *in God, the Creator of nature and the Master of history*…” (Emphasis added.)

              That is a grotesque misrepresentation of the meaning and history of “natural law” — a *secular* theory that predates Christianity by some 1,000 years, starting in ancient Greece (see the Stoics) and extending through Rome (see Cicero). That (mostly) secular view then made its way to the Founders via John Locke.

              The only thing religion did to that theory (as per typical) was to make it mystical, i.e., supernatural, beyond logic, beyond proof — i.e., unknowable. Hard to see how that mystical view of “natural” law is a firm, fixed foundation for the Bill of Rights. BTW, a mystical view of *natural* law is a contradiction.

    2. You failed to present Holmes’ better argument from Abrams:

      “Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition…But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas. . . . The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.”

      Abrams v. United States 250 U.S. 616 (1919)

      1. The key here, at least to me, are the Holmes quotes I italicized, which neither you nor Iowan have addressed. You opt for another Holmes quote but that quote by Holmes is a dissenting opinion in a SCOTUS decision related to espionage. The majority opinion, 7-2, argued the element of clear and present danger existed. Holmes opinion did not prevail so it is odd you would reference it

        These excerpts sufficiently show, that while the immediate occasion for this particular outbreak of lawlessness, on the part of the defendant alien anarchists, may have been resentment caused by our government sending troops into Russia as a strategic operation against the Germans on the eastern battle front, yet the plain purpose of their propaganda was to excite, at the supreme crisis of the war, disaffection, sedition, riots, and, as they hoped, revolution, in this country for the purpose of embarrassing and if possible defeating the military plans of the government in Europe.

        https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/250/616

    3. Even the US Constitution has had to be amended. You have hoisted free speech onto a virtual altar in the sky, pontificating as you do as if these texts created infallible dogmas.

      It’s not free speech on the altar. It is the Constitution.

      Reminds me of an interview of Allen Dershowitz. The media talking head asked why Dershowitz insisted on defending President Trump.

      Dersowitch explained he was defending the Constitution, President Trump was just a small, temporary, beneficiary of his knowledge and advocacy.

    2. When you deal with Jeffie, you deal with a personality that gets his joy from creating emotional utterances by making rash statements that even he may not believe. He’s an exhibitionist that places his ignorance on display. Treat him like you would a flasher. They are essentially the same.

    3. hullbobby

      Both Silberman and Anonymous are especially active today.

      They are the necessary cost of having a free blog and unfettered access.

      Just like we look away when a child has a bathroom accident, we should look away from these people when they post in public.

  18. Professor…..are you drinking some leftover Eggnog this morning….as you seem to miss the difference between “advocating ” Suicide as compared to encouraging, urging, and convincing one to actually kill themselves.

    She was on the roof top doing her best to shy of physically pushing the victim off the rooftop.

    As I have steadfastly stated in the past….free speech ends when one is proposing violence to others…..and convincing some one to leap from a tall building knowing it shall end in the death of the victim has nothing to do with free speech.

    Plain ol’ commonsense tells us the difference.

    2. I was thinking similarly. I am no 1st Amendment scholar but I had always thought that incitement to violence is not protected. I see no principled difference as to whether one is encouraging violence toward first (i.e., oneself) or third parties.

    3. As said in the Morningside Play. Hell hath no fury as the scorn of a woman. Did Urtule see his ex-girlfriend, and she saw it? During my life, i have seen the alleged OJ principles of: “if I can’t have you, no one will”. In growing up and prior to marrying, I had girl friends who choose to go another direction. I saw it as, Just be strong minded and move on. My opinion is;

      one can choose to be weakminded and fold, or not be weakminded and just move on. What is the gene pool answer? Psychiatrists are just for the weakminded and seems there are too many such.

  19. Despicable woman.

    Yet, where was everybody else?

    His friends, his family, his ex girlfriend, faculty, advisor, etc.

    People do not spiral into despair without visible signs.

    Apparently nobody stepped up, certainly not effectively.

    Do they bear responsibility according to the prosecutor?

  20. Turley says:

    “The problem is that free speech demands “bright lines” and this standard could not be more murky.”

    There are no “bright lines” when it comes to speech. Certainly, Turley has NEVER proposed one. I’d like to see him try!

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