'Her voice is gone': Experts comment on Morgan suicide pact case testing a 2018 law

MORGAN — The case against Anthony Paul Franklin is likely the last trial retiring 2nd District Judge Noel Hyde is set to preside over, and one that could establish new state precedent.

Legal experts say this is possibly the first time a survivor of a suicide pact has been charged under a 2018 state law that expands the manslaughter statute to include assisting in the suicide of another.

Franklin, 42, of Ogden, is charged with manslaughter, a second-degree felony, in the December 2023 death of his girlfriend, Emily Carrington Thomas, 44.

The two had made a pact to kill themselves together, both taking medication and drinking alcohol, court documents say. Franklin is accused of bringing two firearms "just in case" — one of which Thomas used when the pills didn't work, though Franklin did not.

"Her kindness was something I wish everyone had," one friend posted on Thomas' obituary page, another saying she was "one of those people that you never forget."

In a preliminary hearing in December, defense attorney Julia Stephens raised serious questions about Franklin's criminal charge, arguing that "punishing the survivor of a genuine pact can serve no deterrent purpose and may hinder medical treatment and is merely useless cruelty. It can do no more than strengthen the will to succeed in the act of self-destruction."

University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell, a former federal judge, said people can differ as to whether there should be a right to commit suicide. "In this state, we've decided very firmly that there is not. And then, as part of that, we've decided it's against criminal law to assist someone in committing suicide," he said.

Court records show a team of capital defense attorneys took on the case pro bono after Franklin was ordered to stand trial, despite the apparent uphill battle.

KSL.com spoke to a number of experts and the originator of the bill about its intent and the impacts of its application going forward.

2018 manslaughter amendments

In 2018, Tyerell Przybycien, 18, of Spanish Fork, pleaded guilty to child abuse homicide, a first-degree felony, a reduced charge from murder, and admitted to pushing Jchandra Brown, 16, to kill herself, helping plan and facilitate her suicide, and filming it.

Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, a personal injury and insurance attorney, was the sponsor of the 2018 amendments. "I'm always going to side with life," he told KSL.com, "and I think that's what we did with House Bill 86."

HB86 added language to the section of Utah code detailing manslaughter penalties to include someone who "intentionally, and with knowledge that another individual intends to commit suicide or attempt to commit suicide, aids the individual to commit suicide." The "act of providing the physical means" is what qualifies as "aid" in the amended code.

McKell argued that we'll never know what Thomas' state of mind was. "Her voice is gone. Do we know what she was thinking at the time of the death?" he asked.

"These are the exact types of cases that I thought about" when drafting the bill, he said. "If there had been a situation where Mr. Przybycien had also committed suicide or had a failed suicide attempt, it wouldn't have made any difference to me."

But Franklin's case significantly differs from the Przybycien case, according to the executive director of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, David Ferguson.

"The guy who is essentially bullying a girl to commit suicide versus a man who is so deeply unwell that he's planning to be part of the suicide, these two people are completely different people," he said.

"It's a common problem with the Legislature, where you don't have a lot of options to force people to behave a certain way. And so the criminal law becomes super attractive. It's also about the simplest way," Ferguson said.

In November 2024, Saratoga Springs resident Heavenly Faith Garfield was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter through a plea deal. She was originally charged with murder. She admitted to shooting her friend Brooklyn Barrett as part of a suicide pact but was too afraid to shoot herself.

Fourth District Judge Derek Pullan said at the sentencing, "Faith deprived Brooklyn of the ability to change her mind, to step back from the brink and to choose to stay. Aiding another to commit suicide is a grave offense."

"I did everything that she wanted, but not what she needed. I'll have to bear that guilt with me for the rest of my life," Garfield said.

The statement of facts presented in the Franklin case alleges that Thomas died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

"In other situations where there's been a homicide charge for someone committing suicide, it's been in situations where the defendant was not also trying to kill themselves," BYU law professor Stephanie Plamondon told KSL.com.

"Generally, we don't make an attempt on a person's own life a crime because we don't want to necessarily encourage" people to go through with it, she said.

The Franklin case "is one of the first cases to use this statute," Cassell said, "so there isn't going to be a lot of precedence the judge can look to, and the judge is going to have, obviously, a difficult decision in trying to figure out what the sentence is" should there ultimately be a conviction.

"What the law is designed to do is to help channel people who are around those who are considering suicide into appropriate responses, referring the victim to mental health services and providing support rather than aiding in committing a suicide," he said.

But Ferguson said that "if the goal is deterrence, that's not how deterrence works."

"There's just an enormous body of research that shows that when people go out and do things, they're not thinking about what the possible criminal penalty is," he said.

Plamondon agreed, saying that "either under a specific deterrence or a general deterrence theory, punishing this person or prosecuting this case might not really achieve those ends."

But of such deterrence arguments, McKell said he believes "that defense is nonsensical."

Mental health help for the incarcerated

"The suicide rate is actually greater in jails and prisons than it is outside," Ferguson said. "Jails and prisons are horrible, really just hard to fathom."

From 2001 to 2019, the number of suicides increased by 85% in state prisons, 61% in federal prisons, and 13% in local jails, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report.

That report shows the rate of suicide for males in local Utah jails is 88.1 out of 100,000, and 41 in Utah state prisons, from the years 2015 to 2019. In 2023 the male suicide rate in Utah was 32.5 for every 100,000.

"A big percentage of the prison population is suffering from some kind of mental health issue," Plamondon said. "We're not great at giving that population the help and treatment that they need."

A potential maximum sentence for Franklin of one to 15 years "is not a joke in terms of the impact on this person's life," Plamondon said. "That's something else I would kind of question: Is a significant amount of prison time the right policy response to a situation like this?"

Franklin is scheduled for trial in May.

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