U.S. Supreme Court Notebook

Supreme Court rejects appeal in texting suicide case


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place the conviction of a Massachusetts woman who sent her boyfriend text messages urging him to kill himself.

Michelle Carter is serving a 15-month sentence after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2014 death of her boyfriend, Conrad Roy III. A judge determined that Carter, who was 17, caused the death of the 18-year-old Roy when she ordered him in a phone call to get back in his carbon monoxide-filled truck that he’d parked in a Kmart parking lot.

The phone call wasn’t recorded, but the judge relied on a text Carter sent her friend in which she said she told Roy to get back in. In text messages sent in the days leading up to Roy’s death, Carter also encouraged Roy to follow through with his suicide plan and chastised him when he didn’t, Massachusetts courts found.

Carter’s case has garnered national attention and sparked legislative proposals in Massachusetts to criminalize suicide coercion.

 

Justices turn away appeal of women who went topless at beach
 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is leaving in place the public nudity convictions of three women who removed their bathing suit tops on a New Hampshire beach as part of a campaign advocating for the rights of women to go topless.

The justices declined on Monday to review a state court decision that found no violation of the women’s constitutional rights.

Heidi Lilley, Kia Sinclair and Ginger Pierro are part of the Free the Nipple campaign, a global effort advocating for the rights of women to go topless. They were arrested in 2016 after removing their tops at a beach in Laconia and refusing to put them on when beachgoers complained. Pierro was doing yoga, while the two others were sunbathing.