Michelle Carter's Texting-Suicide Case Is Aiming For The Supreme Court

The lawyer for Michelle Carter , the Massachusetts woman convicted of coercing her boyfriend over text messages into killing himself when she was a teen, says he is planning to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to take up her case.

The free speech issues raised by her case should be judged by the highest court in the country, her attorney Joseph Cataldo told The Boston Herald . He confirmed in a court motion filed Friday that he plans to petition the Supreme Court to take up her case, according to documents obtained by NBC News . 

“This is an extremely important issue,” he told The Boston Herald, “and the Supreme Court should weigh this and what is [sic] says about today’s technology. It’s hugely important to address this issue.”

On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld Carter’s June 2017 involuntary manslaughter conviction over the 2014 death of her boyfriend, Conrad Roy III. Carter, now 22, was sentenced to serve 15 months but had been free on bail pending the results of Wednesday’s appeal. 

Copies of text messages Carter, 17 at the time, had sent to Roy, then 18, urging him to kill himself by carbon monoxide poisoning, “proved that, by her wanton or reckless conduct, she caused the victim’s death by suicide,” the court concluded.

A court hearing to revoke Carter’s previous stay of sentence is scheduled for Monday.