Amanda Knox writes Michelle Carter’s sentence is ‘too much’
Amanda Knox, whose own trial garnered headlines around the world, published an op-ed with the Los Angeles Times Thursday after Michelle Carter was sentenced to serve 15 months in jail.
Knox, who was convicted and then acquitted of murder in Italy in a case that garnered a Netflix documentary, admits it was “wrong” for Carter “to instruct [Conrad Roy III] over the phone to get back into the truck,” where he died from carbon monoxide poisoning. But she also writes Judge Lawrence Moniz’s “relatively lenient decision,” compared to the 20-year maximum sentence, is still “too much.”
Knox argues Carter did not commit “involuntary manslaughter,” the charge she was convicted of:
Involuntary manslaughter is when a drunk driver crashes into another vehicle, when a gunman shoots at tin cans in his suburban backyard, when a carnival ride operator fails to ensure that all passengers are strapped in, and as a result an innocent person dies. Encouraging your boyfriend to follow through with his own death wish should not qualify. Carter may not be innocent in a moral or philosophical sense, but she was wrongfully convicted.
With her defense attorney Joseph Cataldo at left, Michelle Carter listens to her sentencing Thursday.
In the op-ed, titled “Amanda Knox: Michelle Carter deserves sympathy and help, not prison,” Knox compares the image the prosecution attempted to paint of Carter to how the media portrayed her.
When I was on trial for murder in Italy, the media tried to paint me as a “femme fatale.” So it was with a sickening sense of déjà vu that I watched the prosecution attempt the same trick with Carter, whom they said coldly and calculatingly insinuated herself into Roy’s vulnerable consciousness.
Knox closes the piece by saying Carter deserves sympathy and help.
“Just because it’s hard to feel sympathy and understanding, that doesn’t mean it isn’t the right — and just — thing to do,” she wrote.
Read Knox’s full op-ed over at the Los Angeles Times
