Nickname said:
Just saying its gonna be hard to justify a 5 year prison sentence when the guy clearly had other options rather than suicide. Was it terrible? yeah probably but come on it was not the end of the world. though as his roommate he probably should have known the type of reaction he might get for doing something like this.
Not all roommates know or talk to each other.
Here’s the problem though, the judge can’t take the suicide into consideration when sentencing them because it’s a totally seperate issue from the crime itself. If public embarrassment leading to suicide was a crime Gordon Ramsay would be doing a life sentence by now.
Illegally filming sex is a crime, and they’ll be punished in accordance with that, but saying that because someone being filmed reacted a certain way that they should be charged with more of a crime is how judicial activism started. If it had become public knowledge through normal means that this guy was *edited* he would have been just as likely to commit suicide because he wasn’t comfortable with his life choices being made public. That’s not the roommate’s fault.
The family has a strong wrongful death case and I think that’s how this should be persued. If this goes to criminal court, all those two have to do is prove that they didn’t HELP him commit suicide and that a normally sane person wouldn’t commit suicide when it becomes public knowledge that they’re *edited*. At that point the court will have to accept that the guy was mentally unstable. This opens his family and *edited* lover to becoming accessories to the suicide for not seeing what should have been obvious signs of mental instability. This could backfire for the family. Big time.
Don’t get me wrong. I think what they did was unforgiveable and hope they burn in hell for it but the US legal system isn’t set up to dispense moral justice.