MOOR vs. MOOR: Should Bullies be Charged for Murder When Victims Commit Suicide?
REBECCA ZENG
Staff Writer
Murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a person. When juvenile bullies harassed an innocent 12-year-old girl telling her kill herself, she eventually did. Though this was indirect murder, it is still murder as it was a causation of the end result, and therefore the bullies who harassed her should be faced with criminal charges. Those bullies who initiated the harrassment deserve to be punished severely as courts would punish murderers even if their actions were indirect, but consciously caused someone to die. It does not matter if they are remorseful or not, since it is impossible to bring back a life; any bully who caused their victims to commit suicide needs to be punished. This is because more bullies tell their victims to kill themselves, despite knowing the power behind words and more often than now, hey succeed in traumatizing or even driving the victim to commit suicide. A slap on the hand and a reprimand will not transform anyone’s behavior, much less apathetic intimidators.
The First Amendment protects verbal bullying, since it gives everyone the right to free speech. However, just because people in the U.S. are allowed to speak their minds, civil harassment laws state that harassing someone causing substantial emotional distress without a legitimate purpose is a crime. Due to these laws, everyone, including bullies, is held accountable for their words and actions.
BARRY CHEUNG
Staff Writer
People commit suicide for a variety of reasons—one being bullying. Bullies should not be charged with murder, even if their victims commit suicide, because bullying and murder are not comparable in a sense of laws, morals and ethics.
Some adolescent victims of bullying commit suicide, but should the bullies go to jail for almost all of their lives because someone else killed themself? They should not be charged with homicide, since suicide is often the result of multiple, coupled factors. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, these factors include mental disorders, a stressful life, drugs, exposure to another suicide and allowed access to lethal suicide methods. Since there are so many factors involved in suicide, it is unfair to only pinpoint one external cause, bullying.
As stated in the First Amendment of the Constitution, everyone is given the freedom of speech. It is true that bullies
misuse it to unfairly attack their victims, but they still do have the right to say whatever they want. If bullying is proven to be a main reason for the suicide, then charging the bullies with harassment, assault and battery would be more appropriate than charging them with murder.
If there were to be a charge for this predicament, then it should not be treated as a homicide. Bullies do not premeditatedly kill them, nor necessarily expect it to occur.