criminal-law manslaughter suicide
Could these facts lead to a conviction for manslaughter or other crimes?
<p>Here are the facts:</p>
<ol>
<li>A person (A), an adolescent, posts a poll on his Instagram story. It asks ‘Should I kill myself?’ The options are ‘yes’ and ‘no’.</li>
<li>Forty people vote on the poll. Only four people vote ‘yes’. Half of those four voters know A personally, while the other half do not.</li>
<li>After A sees the results of the poll (i.e. only how many people voted ‘yes’ and how many voted ‘no’), he commits suicide.</li>
</ol>
<p>In your jurisdiction, would any or all of the four people who voted ‘yes’ on this poll be convicted of manslaughter or any other crime(s)?</p>

<h2>Manslaughter: no, Other crimes: maybe</h2>
<p><a href="/questions/tagged/new-south-wales" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;new-south-wales&#39;" rel="tag">new-south-wales</a></p>
<p>Section <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s31c.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">31C</a> of the <em>Crimes Act</em> 1900 creates the awkwardly named crime of &quot;AIDING ETC SUICIDE&quot;:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(2) Where--</p>
<p>(a) a person incites or counsels another person to commit suicide, and</p>
<p>(b) that other person commits, or attempts to commit, suicide as a consequence of that incitement or counsel,</p>
<p>the firstmentioned person shall be liable to imprisonment for 5 years.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The prosecution would need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that that voting yes on the poll amounted to either &quot;incitement or council&quot; - a difficult but not impossible task.</p>
