Discussion Legality of giving advice on the forum

[Untitled]

Does giving instructions here on the forum and sharing suicide methods put you at any legal risk for assisting suicide?

If for example I contribute to a discussion on how best to use SN, and someone uses my instructions to kill themselves, does this put me at risk of going to jail for a long time?

Is anyone else paranoid about this?

 

[Rachel74]

Does giving instructions here on the forum and sharing suicide methods put you at any legal risk for assisting suicide?

If for example I contribute to a discussion on how best to use SN, and someone uses my instructions to kill themselves, does this put me at risk of going to jail for a long time?

Is anyone else paranoid about this?

If that was the case we'd all be at risk. You offer advise and that's all it is. Yes I've been paranoid over this too. But you know what if my advise as made someone feel better or given them hope then send me to jail.

 

[Jean Améry]

A legal question is always answered by looking up the relevant law (statutes and/or jurisprudence). Since law is a national phenomenon this would depend on what legal system is applicable. I doubt anyone can answer your question with any degree of accuracy as it stands.

In jurisdictions where books containing detailed descriptions of suicide methods are legal it stands to reason providing the same or similar information would also be legal. Generally speaking (do not take this as the gospel truth) 'assisting suicide' is regarded as knowingly providing the means but certain jurisdictions may well have different interpretations.

Even if it were illegal I doubt a public prosecutor would be able to prove the person acted on one person's advice. That's if they were able to find out anyone's identity here.

 

[Wreck-it-Riley]

I think a lot of people who go also Try to hide this website from the people around them. Risk seems very low.

 

[Darkhaven]

Well first of all the accounselled person has to, indeed commit suicide.
Only then does that question arise.
But it's very unlikely and hard to establish a causality link between the advice and the suicide itself.

 

[Roger]

Well first of all the accounselled person has to, indeed commit suicide.
Only then does that question arise.
But it's very unlikely and hard to establish a causality link between the advice and the suicide itself.

Under English law that is incorrect. It is an offence to encourage or assist an act of suicide, or an attempted suicide.

 

[bluesky1972-2019]

I don't think anyone on this forum encourages anyone to CTB. I see it as a free choice forum that offers support to everyone. I've found it has helped me deal with life as I can vent with no fear or judgement.

 

[Darkhaven]

Under English law that is incorrect. It is an offence to encourage or assist an act of suicide, or an attempted suicide.

Way worse there then.
Over here the purpose of "crime law" is, essentially, subsidiary.
They only apply these laws when there has been a concrete result from the "criminal's" behaviour.
An exception to the rule is, of course, attempted muder, when the result doesn't need to be reached in order for the criminal to be punished.

 

[Ky204]

Considering this is an open forum I don't feel like there's anything to worry about. If it wasn't aloud then this place wouldn't exist to begin with.

 

[TowerUpright]

Pennsylvania passed a silly law recently. I'll have to re-read it. But I think it dealt with giving information to minors.

 

[Stan]

I can't see many countries not having some law that says if you actively encourage someone to commit suicide then you are up for jail time.

 

[sleepy dog]

It is a crime in the UK and in the US. Here is some proof. But you can do a search yourself and find more to read.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidan...espect-cases-encouraging-or-assisting-suicide

https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/causing-suicide/

 

[Science Is Scary]

It is a crime in the UK and in the US. Here is some proof.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidan...espect-cases-encouraging-or-assisting-suicide

https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/causing-suicide/

Thanks for the links.

Some relevant quotes from https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/suicide-policy-prosecutors-respect-cases-encouraging-or-assisting-suicide (UK):

• "In the context of websites which promote suicide, the suspect may commit the offence of encouraging or assisting suicide if he or she intends that one or more of his or her readers will commit or attempt to commit suicide."
• '"Another person" referred to in section 2 need not be a specific person and the suspect does not have to know or even be able to identify that other person. The offence of encouraging or assisting suicide can be committed even where a suicide or an attempt at suicide does not take place.'
• "Accordingly, where there is sufficient evidence to justify a prosecution, prosecutors must go on to consider whether a prosecution is required in the public interest."
• "A prosecution is more likely to be required if : ... the suspect was unknown to the victim and encouraged or assisted the victim to commit or attempt to commit suicide by providing specific information via, for example, a website or publication;"
• "A prosecution is more likely to be required if :... the suspect gave encouragement or assistance to more than one victim who were not known to each other"
• "A prosecution is less likely to be required if: ... the suspect was wholly motivated by compassion;"
• "A prosecution is less likely to be required if: ... the suspect had sought to dissuade the victim from taking the course of action which resulted in his or her suicide;"
• "A prosecution is less likely to be required if: ... the actions of the suspect may be characterised as reluctant encouragement or assistance in the face of a determined wish on the part of the victim to commit suicide;"

The language suggests intent of causing a suicide attempt is required in the UK. I'm not sure how to document suicide methods so there's no intent for people to use them. I don't know if a disclaimer would be enough. If intent is established, a suicide method poster could be protected by the discretion of the prosecution, with some factors working for and against it.

See a lawyer for more specific and more accurate information.

 

[Science Is Scary]

I did some more digging. With how many countries and states/provinces there are, you could easily write a whole book or series of books on this topic. I don't feel like writing books, so this post won't be very thorough.

For the best advice, you should of course see a lawyer. The law changes over time, so some information may be out of date already.

Worldwide Overview

There is a review of suicide laws from around 2015. The authors found 142 out of 192 countries had laws against encouraging or assisting a suicide.[1] The review suggests to me that abetting, accomplicing, advising, aiding, assisting, causing, counseling, encouraging, facilitating, inciting, instigating, leading, procuring, promoting or soliciting a suicide or suicide attempt was illegal in some countries. Suicide pacts (partners?) were also illegal in some countries.[1]

The review doesn't provide much help on which of these laws might apply to an online discussion or guide on suicide methods. Perhaps at least the laws making "advising" or "counseling" illegal could criminalize suicide method discussion. But the other terms used by laws might be stretched to include suicide method discussion as well.

One article claims Australia was the first country to make pro-suicide websites illegal. It did so in 2006.[6]

Australia

The Criminal Code Act 1995 has a Subdivision G which, among other bans, seems to make suicide method instructions illegal to send over a carriage service.[4] A carriage service carries communications using electromagnetic energy,[5] which includes the Internet. So discussing suicide methods over the Internet appears to be illegal in Australia, subject to some conditions. Or at least illegal wherever that law applies in Australia.

One article opines that websites outside of Australia are not usually subject to the penalties of the suicide carriage service law.[6] However, I wouldn't expect Australians using those websites to be immune to those penalties.

Despite the censorship, I can at least praise Australia for making the legal situation clear. I wish the same could be said about other countries.

United States

The situation in the U.S. is a bit confusing. There is some evidence that explaining a suicide method to a particular person can be illegal when resulting in suicide, despite the First Amendment.

A newspaper article in The Atlantic (from 2016) indicates 39 U.S. states had laws against assisted suicide. The article suggests the majority of states don't consider "talking or communicating" to be assisted suicide.[3]

However, J.D. candidate Sweeny suggests that those laws against assisting suicide could apply to some cases involving speech. He says, "It is quite likely that a person who offers material assistance specific to an instance of suicide, such as instructions or advice about how to commit suicide, could be found guilty of assisting suicide under an assisted suicide statute."[7]

He goes on to describe a case where someone provided suicide method advice, stayed during the suicide and cleaned up afterward. That person's organization, Final Exit Network, ended up being guilty of assisting the suicide.[7]

Sweeny also mentions the case of Melchert-Dinkel, who was found guilty of assisting a suicide despite not physically assisting. Sweeny opines that "had Melchert-Dinkel refrained from offering specific advice on how his victims should hang themselves, he may not have been convicted for assisting suicide".[7]

Overall, it's possible, but not clear to me, that most states' assisted suicide laws could be applied to suicide method discussions resulting in suicide.

The Atlantic also lists 7+ states where the law explicitly enables talking or communicating to be illegal, assisted suicide.[3] In these states, discussing methods might be extra risky.

On the other hand, the laws of those 7+ states might not survive court scrutiny unchanged. Minnesota lost the "advise" and "encourage" portions of an assisted suicide statute in a court battle. The decision relied on the First Amendment.[7]

Even without explicit laws against advising someone about suicide, other laws might be stretched to apply. Sweeny presents two cases where defendants were convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the suicides of others. However, in those cases the defendants were "physically present at the scene of the suicide and physically assisted with some aspect of the suicide".[7] That wouldn't be the case for an online discussion of methods. I'm not sure how possible an involuntary manslaughter conviction is.

How common is prosecution for discussion of suicide methods?

• From about 1994 to 2011, there were 6 people sentenced in Minnesota, United States for aiding a suicide.[2] I'm not sure how many cases related to discussing suicide methods.
• One article says Australia made pro-suicide websites illegal in 2006. The authors in 2009 were unaware of any enforcement for the law.[6]

Conclusion

There are many places in the world where discussing suicide methods could be or become illegal. If you want advice for your particular location or situation, see a lawyer.

References

[1]: Mishara, Brian L. and Weisstub, David N., "The legal status of suicide: A global review," International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, vol. 44, pp. 54–74, Jan. 2016. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160252715001429
[2]: "Ex-nurse to appeal aiding suicides conviction," Washington Post, 16-Mar-2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/15/AR2011031503467.html
[3]: M. Majchrowicz, "The Volunteers Who Help People End Their Own Lives," The Atlantic, 06-Jul-2016. [Online]. Available: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...s-who-help-people-end-their-own-lives/489602/. [Accessed: 24-Oct-2019].
[4]: Australian Government, "Criminal Code Act 1995." [Online]. Available: http://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00301/Html/Volume_2. [Accessed: 24-Oct-2019].
[5]: Australian Government, "Telecommunications Act 1997." [Online]. Available: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00273/Html/Volume_1, http://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00273. [Accessed: 24-Oct-2019].
[6]: J. Pirkis, L. Neal, A. Dare, R. W. Blood, and D. Studdert, "Legal Bans on Pro-Suicide Web Sites: An Early Retrospective from Australia," http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/suli.2009.39.2.190, 15-Jun-2009. [Online]. Available: https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/suli.2009.39.2.190. [Accessed: 23-Oct-2019].
[7]: S. Sweeney, "Deadly Speech: Encouraging Suicide and Problematic Prosecutions," Case W. Res. L. Rev., vol. 67, p. 941, 2017 2016. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/cwrlrv67&id=981&div=&collection=

If you have trouble finding a particular paper, check Sci-Hub. Another option is doing a Google Scholar search for the title and clicking the PDF link on the right or the "All X Versions" link.

 

[bea1974]

There is an added complication though with where did the "crime" take place. Eg. I am in the UK right now. If someone online encourages me to break a UK law and in doing so breaks a UK law themselves, but they are outside the UK at the time, then it becomes about whether they broke the law of the country they're in, and/or whether that country has an extradition treaty with the UK, and even after that whether crime is considered serious enough to involve police across borders. Plus of course, what is considered "encouragement" and what can be proven. IE the difference between saying "if you do this you will die" vs "you should do this, do it now". And proving who typed it, that it was the owners the computer used, not someone else accessing it, etc etc.

 

[Science Is Scary]

I stumbled upon a 2019 review of assisted suicide laws in the United States by Final Exit Network's lawyer. It goes into more detail.

http://www.finalexitnetwork.org/Survey_of_State_Laws_Against_Assisting_in_a_Suicide_2019_update.pdf

 

[imstillhungry]

The police investigated this forum after the high profile death associated with this website, and it's still here and no one has been arrested

 

[Thatdude]

Does giving instructions here on the forum and sharing suicide methods put you at any legal risk for assisting suicide?

If for example I contribute to a discussion on how best to use SN, and someone uses my instructions to kill themselves, does this put me at risk of going to jail for a long time?

Is anyone else paranoid about this?

First thing is first. Keep in mind I'm not a lawyer. Next thing, the law is different from area to area.

Now as far as in the USA, from my understanding is. If you're not telling someone to off themselves. Then you're OK. I had to study a bit of this in one of my prior degrees. But basically if someone goes on a forum and ask for bomb making advice, and someone else gave them it. Like how to make xyz and this is all the things it will do. From my understanding, both is within the law. The first person isn't breaking the law since there is no law against asking questions. The other is protected since it can be viewed as educational (passing along knowledge).
Now if person B also gave some of the supplies or told person A to make the bomb. Then from my understanding, person B would get into trouble.

 

[Daniela]

Italian law: https://www.brocardi.it/codice-penale/libro-secondo/titolo-xii/capo-i/art580.html

Translated:

"Anyone who convinces others to commit suicide or strengthens another individual's the suicidal ideation, or in any way facilitates the execution, is punished, if suicide takes place, with imprisonment from five to twelve years. If suicide does not take place, the individual is punished with imprisonment from one to five years, provided that a serious or very serious injury results from the suicide attempt.

The penalties are increased if the person instigated or excited or helped finds himself in one of the conditions indicated in numbers 1 and 2 of the previous article.* Nevertheless, if the aforementioned person is less than fourteen years of age or otherwise lacks the capacity to understand or wish [85], the provisions relating to murder [575-577] apply."

"It has to be established that the active subject was well aware and willingly helping someone commit suicide. Unwitting instigation isn't punished."

*Previous article is about consensual murder. Penalties include imprisonment up to fifteen years. Penalties are increased if a) the deceased is a minor b) the deceased is mentally ill, or in a mentally deficient state due to (for example) substance abuse c) the consent to murder was obtained through violence or coercion

---

Yeah if you're Italian and you're in this forum you're screwed. Let's say a member who CTBs has family who finds out he/she communicated with you and they decide to prosecute you. Even if the court ultimately decides that "the conduct of individuals who assist someone's suicide" (i.e. providing tools, helping find a location etc.) doesn't include exchanging (non-bullying) messages (even though "giving instructions" is explicitly included), you can already imagine the media circus surrounding a case like that. This is the country where a grief-stricken father had to fight in court for fifteen years to obtain the authorization to suspend feeding his longtime brain dead daughter.

That being said, in 2017 an euthanasia activist helped a paraplegic man commit suicide through Switzerland's Dignitas and wasn't condemned, because "the charge of assisted suicide has to be applied on a case-by-case basis". But yeah Italy is pretty hardcore in its anti-suicide stance. According to court papers, even after it was established the paraplegic man had decided to commit suicide independently, the accusation against the activist was *not* removing any obstacles for him to go through with it. (i.e. the paraplegic man was too poor to travel to Switzerland)

 

[Moonicide]

There's a difference between providing educational information and actively encouraging someone to die. As long as you don't encourage or egg someone on to take their lives, you should be fine.

 

[Daniela]

In Italy "eliminating material and spiritual obstacles" that render suicide an attractive, viable option is criminalized