First Amendment-Sanctioned Suicide

By: Shelby Whalen

Published on: October 28, 2024

Trigger Warning: This blog post contains content related to suicide, suicidal ideation, and discussions of individuals encouraging others to commit suicide. The material discussed may be deeply distressing or triggering to some readers, especially those who have experienced mental health struggles, loss, or trauma related to suicide.

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, we encourage you to seek support from a mental health professional or reach out to a helpline. In the U.S., you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text HELLO to 741741.

Please proceed with care and prioritize your well-being.

“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.”[1] The First Amendment is one of the most revered amendments in the Constitution. Freedom of speech was a novel idea when the Bill of Rights was drafted, and this freedom has shaped our country into what it is today. But at what point has freedom of speech gone too far?

Freedom of speech protects most speech in this country; however, under the test in Brandenburg v. Ohio, it does not protect language that incites violence.[2] Should this not extend to encouraging someone to commit suicide?

There has been recent conversation in the United States around limiting this type of speech since Commonwealth v. Carter[3], but this limit should similarly extend to hateful websites like “Sanctioned Suicide” and other chatrooms where participants encourage individuals to commit suicide and give them ideas on how to do so.

In Carter, the defendant encouraged the victim for months to commit suicide.[4] On July 12, 2014, the victim died by suicide due to carbon monoxide inhalation.[5] When he initially started to inhale the toxic gas, he changed his mind and got out of his truck.[6] However, with the encouragement of the defendant, he got back into the truck, continued to inhale carbon monoxide, and died.[7] The defendant confirmed this via text to some of her friends.[8]

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that prosecuting someone for encouraging another to commit suicide was not protected speech under the First Amendment and that the speech was an integral part of committing a crime.[9] The Supreme Court has held that “speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute” is not protected by the First Amendment.[10] The defendant in Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for her wanton and reckless pressuring of a person to commit suicide that overpowered that person’s will to live.[11]

However, in Brandenburg, the Supreme Court held that speech can be prohibited if it is “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action and it is likely to incite or produce such action.”[12] This should apply to conduct that encourages suicide, including websites and forums that encourage others to commit suicide and give them ideas and methods by which to carry it out.

Sanctioned Suicide is a website that provides explicit directions on how to die.[13] The site has public forums, and in live chats and private messages, site-goers discuss methods to commit suicide.[14] Strangers can also seek out partners to kill themselves together.[15] Participants share encouraging messages, nudge each other in their plans to end their lives, and praise those who follow through.[16]

About 48,000 people take their own lives each year in the United States.[17] However, the New York Times was able to identify forty-five members of Sanctioned Suicide who killed themselves, and more than 500 members wrote “goodbye threads,” announcing how and when they planned to end their own lives, and then never posted again.[18] Some members even described watching other members live-stream their deaths off of the site.[19] The site also encourages the use of a meat-curing preservative as a means of suicide, and the method has become increasingly popular, alarming some coroners and doctors.[20] The site draws nearly six million page views a month, and suicide is the second leading cause of death among people between the ages of ten and forteen and twenty-five and thirty-four.[21]

The Brandenburg test for limiting free speech should apply to Sanctioned Suicide and other similar internet platforms.[22] This website is directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action by encouraging others to commit suicide or involuntary manslaughter.[23] That speech is likely to incite or produce such action by guiding members to encourage other members via message boards, direct messaging, and providing people with directions on ending their own lives.[24] This kind of speech only seeks to increase the suicide rate in this country and should be restricted and criminalized.

More comprehensive prosecution and laws must be passed to restrict this language. A law like Conrad’s Law, a proposed law in Massachusetts in honor of the victim in Carter, would make encouraging someone to commit suicide punishable by five years in prison and needs to be passed among the states and federally.[25] Furthermore, the Communications Decency Act needs reforming as the law currently shields websites from liability for content users post on their platforms.[26]

The suicide crisis in this country is real and concerning. While the First Amendment is one of the most essential and protected freedoms, 48,000 people die by suicide in the United States every year, and something needs to be done, or at the very least, those people need to not be encouraged to end their own lives.[27] If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or 988 or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.

[1] U.S. Const. amend. I.

[2] Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969).

[3] Commonwealth v. Carter, 115 N.E.3d 559, 570 (Mass. 2019).

[4] Id. at 563.

[5] Id. at 562.

[6] Id.

[7] Id. at 565.

[8] Id.

[9] Id. at 571.

[10] United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 460 (2010).

[11] Carter, 115 N.E.3d at 565.

[12] Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969).