A man accused of encouraging a Carleton student to commit suicide had his conviction reversed by the Minnesota supreme court March 19, according to court documents.
William Melchert-Dinkel was convicted of two counts of aiding suicide. One count was for the death of Nadia Kajouji, a Carleton student who jumped into the frozen Ottawa river in 2008, and the second count for a man who hanged himself in England.
The supreme court ruled that convicting someone of “encouraging” and “advising” to commit suicide is unconstitutional, but the court upheld the law that criminalizes “assisting” in a suicide, the documents said.
Because Melchert-Dinkel’s original 360-day jail sentence didn’t specify whether he had assisted in the two deaths, his case will go to lower court again.
Melchert-Dinkel’s lawyer Terry Watkins said he was satisfied with the supreme court decision.
“It certainly seems to hit all the points in the way we would have liked to seen,” Watkins said.
They will now wait for the lower courts, but Watkins said he believes his client’s activities cannot be classified as assisting. Watkins said he hopes the new trial will result in an acquittal.
“I’m going to leave that up to the lower courts to decide. We’re simply going to respond in the same manner that we have,” he said.
In the original case, Melchert-Dinkel was accused of seeking out suicidal people online.
He would pose as a suicidal female nurse and give advice on how people could kill themselves, according to evidence in the original case.
In some cases, Melchert-Dinkel entered fake suicide pacts with people, five of which he said he believed resulted in actual suicides, according to court documents.
In 2012, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled against Melchert-Dinkel when he argued that his conviction went against the First Amendment that permits freedom of expression.
