Should induced suicide be a crime?

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Should induced suicide be a crime and one comparable to murder in the United States?

Facing 30 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines, Aaron Swartz, who was known to suffer depression, was found hanging dead by his neck by his girlfriend in his Brooklyn apartment on Friday January 11, 2013.

Swartz was alleged to have downloaded articles from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology database of academic journals called JSTOR, owned by a not for profit group.
JSTOR said it had told prosecutors that it was not interested in pursuing charges against Swartz, and had made all of the material Swartz was alleged to have stolen and more freely available to the public prior to the suicide.

Known as an advocate for free information online, Swartz was a brilliant young man, founder of internet company Ingofami, later aquired by Reddit, and co creator of the internet technology RSS that allows websites to broadcast updates.

Swartz's lawyer, Elliot Peters said US Attorney Stephen Heymann said Swartz would have to plead guilty to every charge against him including wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer for any plea bargain.
It was reported that MIT would do nothing to stop the prosecution.

I think it's a tragic story...I don't think he should have been punished with that much time and money...and considering his depression.

I think calling it "induced suicide" would be the best way to ensure nothing happens. The feds would just have to claim he had clinical depression and the case would collapse. There is no way to prove or quantify the effects of the prosecution on his suicide.

And it is not needed. There is already a case to be made. Swartz was bullied by the justice over a "minor crime". The proportionality was completely wrong. The prosecution's behavior is wrong regardless of whether it ends in suicide or not.

Only if it is successful.

Induced suicide is murder, attempted induced suicide is attempted murder. I know how crappy depression can be and at times I've wanted to die, but time keeps going and situations change. It's better to just keep moving on rather than letting a heavy but temporary bit of depression take away one's entire rest of their life.

It's not clear what "induced suicide" means. "Counselling suicide," is very likely a crime in all of the relevant jurisdictions. (I haven't checked the statutes, but I think I am safe in the assumption). But in order to make out counselling, there must be a clear, causal link between the actions of the accused and the result. (I'm reasonably sure you cannot counsel by omission, but I stand to be corrected by a more knowledgable lawyer.) Further, the causal link must be actually or constructively known to the accused.

"Pay your bills or we will sue," is not counselling suicide. "Plead guilty to all of these charges and we will talk about whether we can do a deal on sentencing," is not counselling suicide. Even shouting, "Go ahead and do it," to a guy on a ledge is not counselling suicide.

"Let's take out a $500,000 insurance policy, which will be enough to make all of these debts I'm collecting from you go away. Then kill yourself your family will be left with a tidy remainder and no debt to worry about," is counselling suicide (and it's already a crime.)

Well, I guess Harvard, Princeton and the like are crying crocodile tears over the death of Aaron Swartz.

i am opposed to all forms of legislation over the body. The jurisdiction of the state should end where your body starts.

Imo, the concept of "Induced Suicide" is a lame attempt to find a way to place blame for the suicide on someone other than the person who commits suicide.

The only person responsible for an act of suicide is the person who commits the suicide.

Under an "Induced Suicide", a girl whose boyfriend commits suicide over seeing her dancing in public with another boy would be blamed for the boyfriend's death; a woman could be prosecuted for her husband's death because he killed himself after she served him with divorce papers; and an entire crowd of people could be rounded up and hauled off to jail merely because they all shouted "Jump!" at a man on a 12th-story ledge just before he turned himself into street pizza.

There is no such thing as a person who "has no other choice" than to commit suicide - suicide is a personal choice, not a forced act.

It appears I overstepped the mark on this last post.

And yet he was not yet sentenced. Even if he were, he could appeal. I think that his mental illness of depression (and I say that lovingly, because I suffered too) played just as important of a role as his prosecution. Many people put in the same situation would react differently.

But I do think that what MIT and the government did was a form of bullying and that in itself should be illegal.

Sure thing. It's understandable to be emotionally charged in a case like this.