Suicide voyeur acquitted on free speech grounds

The conviction of an American ‘‘suicide voyeur’’ who encouraged a British man and Canadian woman to take their own lives in an internet chat room has been overturned on free speech grounds.

After the Minnesota Supreme Court ruling, a lower court must now decide whether to bring fresh charges against William Melchert-Dinkel, a former male nurse who was convicted on two rare counts of assisted suicide in 2011.

He was found guilty of aiding the suicide of Mark Dryborough, 32, who died in Coventry, UK, in 2005, and of Nadia Kajouji, 18, who took her own life in 2008.

In the original trial, the court was told that Mr Melchert-Dinkel, who is married with two children, posed online as a compassionate female nurse to prey on depressed individuals, but then gave them advice on how to suicide.

He allegedly told police that he acted for the ‘‘thrill of the chase’’ and wanted to watch his targets die via a computer webcam.

But in a ruling eagerly awaited across the United States by both sides in the assisted suicide debate, the state supreme court has ruled that a state law prohibiting ‘‘advising’’ and ‘‘encouraging’’ suicide broke the constitution by restricting freedom of speech.

However, it upheld the part of the statute that outlaws ‘‘assisting’’ suicide and sent Mr Melchert-Dinkel’s case back to a lower court.

County prosecutors must now decide whether to appeal against the ruling in the US Supreme Court or to bring fresh charges against Mr Melchert-Dinkel for assisting suicide.

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While I am pleased that free speech was supported, I am a little surprised.  Incitement to violence is normally held not to be free speech yet suicide is surely violence.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).