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Trial in teen’s suicide could begin in December

Michelle Carter appeared at the Bristol County Juvenile Court in Taunton on Friday. George Rizer for the Boston Globe

TAUNTON — Lawyers for a Plainville teenager accused of persuading her friend to kill himself have asked a judge to suppress all evidence police obtained from her, arguing that she was unlawfully interrogated and searched.

They filed the motion Friday morning in Taunton Juvenile Court, where Michelle Carter, 19, appeared for a brief hearing. Judge Lawrence Moniz said he hopes the case will proceed to trial in early December.

Carter is accused in the death of Conrad Roy III, 18, of Mattapoisett, who died in July 2014 of carbon monoxide poisoning after he connected a generator to a truck’s exhaust system in Fairhaven.

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Roy spoke on the phone to Carter for 47 minutes while he sat in the truck. At one point she allegedly told him to “get back in” the vehicle when he expressed doubts about taking his own life.

She also allegedly exchanged dozens of text messages with him, encouraging him to follow through with the suicide.

Carter, who was 17 at the time of Roy’s death, faces an involuntary manslaughter charge. She was indicted last year as a youthful offender in Bristol County.

According to the motion to suppress, which the court released Friday, two Fairhaven detectives who interviewed Carter at school on Oct. 2, 2014 asked Carter for her phone and laptop passwords without a warrant, while she was not under arrest, and without properly advising her of her right to a lawyer.

Carter provided her passwords, and police found phone, text, and Facebook conversations between her and Roy.

“I believed I was obeying the laws of the Commonwealth when I was seized and the pass code to my phone and the user name and password to my laptop were obtained,” Carter wrote in an affidavit supporting the motion.

“I did not freely consent to any search and seizure,” she wrote.

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According to Carter’s arrest warrant, the detectives had search warrants for her home and cellphone when they approached her at school. Detective Scott Gordon wrote in the arrest warrant that he advised Carter that she was not in custody and was free to leave at any time.

Gordon also wrote that he told Carter he had a search warrant for her phone before asking for her phone password. But Gordon does not say he produced the warrants until later, when speaking with Carter’s father — after Carter had turned over her passwords.

Carter’s lawyers also filed 21 other motions Friday, requesting access to Roy’s hospital and school records, his personal laptops and cellphone, and his mother’s arrest records for a fight with Roy’s father.

They also requested access to a Facebook conversation between Carter and another friend of Roy’s, which they say shows that Carter told others about Roy’s suicidal notions, contrary to prosecutors’ arguments that she failed to do so in the months leading up to his death.

“There’s still a lot of information that we need to obtain, now that the case is moving forward,” said Joseph Cataldo, one of Carter’s attorneys, after the hearing.

He has argued previously that Roy was already depressed and suicidal and that Carter was not responsible for his actions.

Carter’s Friday court appearance was her first since the Supreme Judicial Court on July 1 rejected her attorneys’ attempts to dismiss the charge against her.

The judge will hear the 21 discovery motions on Sept. 2. The motion to suppress will be heard Oct. 14.

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“A police officer will come testify as to his questioning of Michelle Carter and whether or not they can use her statements against her at a trial,” Cataldo said.

After the hearing, about 10 of Roy’s relatives and friends huddled with prosecutors. They declined to comment.

The Supreme Judicial Court’s unanimous decision earlier this month to allow the case to proceed marked the first time the state’s highest court has allowed an involuntary manslaughter indictment to stand on the basis of words alone.

The judges determined that, through a stream of text messages and cellphone calls to Roy, Carter had established a “virtual presence” at the time of the suicide.


Andy Rosen and Kathy McCabe of the Globe staff contributed to this article. Vivian Wang can be reached at vivian.wang-@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @vwang3.