Carter v. Massachusetts

Issues: (1) Whether a petitioner’s conviction for involuntary manslaughter, based on words alone, violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment when the petitioner’s communications, which were found to have caused the deceased’s suicide, did not constitute speech that was “an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute,” Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co.; and (2) whether the petitioner’s conviction violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment because in assisted- or encouraged-suicide cases the common law of involuntary manslaughter fails to provide reasonably clear guidelines to prevent “arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement,” McDonnell v. United States.