Last week, former Boston College student Inyoung You pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter charges based on the theory that her abusive behavior led her boyfriend, Alexander Urtula, to commit suicide. You and Urtula exchanged roughly 75,000 text messages that reveal a toxic relationship. WGBH Morning Edition Host Joe Mathieu spoke with Northeastern University law professor and WGBH News legal analyst Daniel Medwed about the case and potential outcomes. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.
Joe Mathieu: First of all, you're familiar with the case. Do you think it might be resolved by a plea bargain before this actually gets to trial?
Daniel Medwed: Well, in theory, that's always a possibility. More than 90 percent of cases nationwide are resolved prior to trial with a plea bargain, but I don't think it's going to happen here. This is such a notorious, high-profile case. And District Attorney Rachel Rollins has made it clear that she wants to pursue it aggressively simply by filing manslaughter charges, a homicide charge. I don't think a plea is in the offing. I think people want to see this litigated in open court [and] in a transparent process. I could be wrong. We still have maybe a year before this case would even go to trial, but I doubt it will happen.
Mathieu: Assuming it does, what kind of hurdles are facing the prosecution in securing the manslaughter conviction?
Medwed: Well, under manslaughter, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that You recklessly and wantonly caused Urtula's death, and that in turn engenders two chief legal hurdles. First, recklessness. Did she consciously disregard a substantial risk that Urtula would kill himself? You mentioned those 75,000 text messages at the top. Sifting through them, examining the vitriol [and] toxicity of the relationship, it might be easy or it might be difficult to show that she was aware of his suicidal tendencies. We just don't know. Second, there's the issue of causation. Prosecution must prove that You's conduct caused Urtula to commit suicide. Even though the evidence clearly suggests that she was a chief factor, a major contributing factor, he did ultimately take his own life. There's no evidence that she pushed him off the garage. In legal parlance, maybe his decision was an intervening cause that broke the chain of causation between You's conduct and the result. So those, I think, are the two legal hurdles.
Mathieu: There was an interesting wrinkle in the case last week when her attorneys released text messages from the day he took his own life, and she repeatedly says, 'Stop. Don't do this.' [It's] different than the language we saw in the months leading up to that. Does it make a difference?
Medwed: I think that could make a difference in the sense that it shows that perhaps she had a change of heart. It could go possibly to the idea of causation — that maybe she didn't cause his death, that he was already on that path — but I'm not entirely sure. It also could have backfired, because it showed to some extent a chaotic approach in her behavior.
Mathieu: Didn't prosecutors in the Michelle Carter case face similar obstacles? How does this compare to that one? We're hearing about the two a lot.
Medwed: Absolutely. The prosecutors in Carter faced the same hurdles. They cleared them. Maybe with not much room to spare, but they cleared them. That decision was affirmed by the Supreme Judicial Court, a cert petition is currently pending in the U.S. Supreme Court. We don't know what will happen. But I think this prosecution, the You case, is a stronger one for the government, and here's why. There's evidence that You and Urtula were in each other's physical presence on the day of the crime.
Mathieu: They were both on the top of that garage.
Medwed: They were there. Unlike Carter, where Michelle Carter's relationship with Conrad Roy was essentially virtual. It was conducted by text message [and] online communication. So I think it's a stronger argument that You overcame Urtula's will and was a compelling causal factor in his death.
Mathieu: So we only have a minute here. Give us the defense perspective.
Medwed: From the defense perspective, as a matter of law, the You team would love to argue that there's a First Amendment problem here — that the government is going after her, overreaching for manslaughter, criminalizing her speech [and] text messages. But we know from the Carter case that when you weaponize words, that doesn't warrant First Amendment protection in the commonwealth. So I think she's going to be out of luck. As a matter of fact, she's going to argue reasonable doubt: "I wasn't reckless. I didn't cause this." But that requires a sympathetic audience, and I think it'll be difficult to find a sympathetic jury here. Which means she's probably going to go for what's called a bench trial, which is what Michelle Carter did, based on the philosophy that judges have been around the block [and] they've seen it all. They're not going to be swayed by these emotionally charged facts.
