Amanda Knox Argues That Michelle Carter Was Wrongfully Convicted

Last month, Michelle Carter, 20, of Massachusetts was convicted of involuntary manslaughter after sending a series of text messages urging her boyfriend, Conrad Roy III, to kill himself. Yesterday, she was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, though she was controversially granted a stay and won’t be going to prison until she has an appeal.

Amanda Knox was famously accused of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher, while she studied abroad in Italy in 2007. Although Knox served several years in prison in Italy, the decision was finally overturned in 2015 after it was made clear that neither Knox nor her boyfriend were anywhere near the scene of the crime by DNA evidence.

Amanda Knox argues that Michelle Carter’s sentence is relatively lenient, however, she argues that it is “too much.” According to Knox, involuntary manslaughter should be reserved for drunk driving victims, not people who have encouraged their boyfriends to follow through on their own death wishes.

Knox does admit that it is difficult to feel sorry for Michelle Carter, and although she should be innocent in the eyes of the law, she isn’t innocent in a “moral or philosophical sense.”

The whole affair, Knox says, reminds her of her own trial, which turned out to be a media circus.

A recent Netflix documentary shined a light on Amanda Knox’s trial and how the media handled the case incorrectly. During the trial, she was painted as a sex-crazed American who could sway men to do anything they wanted for her. In one theory of the court, it was stated that she, her boyfriend, and a man from her work had colluded to rape Meredith Kercher before killing her. Another theory was that Kercher chided Knox for not being as prudent as she was when it came to sex and Knox killed her out of rage. Both proved to be false.

Despite the media and court’s twisting of her own case, Knox knows what it is like for false accusations to follow someone for their rest of their lives.

She insists that Conrad Roy III made the “mistake” of going to another troubled teen for advice on his depression, and her misguided advice will haunt her forever.

“By holding her accountable for Roy’s death, we increase the tally of victims in this case, we ignore the mental health factors that lead to suicide, and we learn nothing about how to prevent it.”

[Featured Image by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images]