Amanda Knox has joined requires the exoneration of loss of life row inmate Melissa Lucio every week earlier than the Texas mom is scheduled to be executed, saying she needs she might "welcome her to our exoneree household."
Knox, who was exonerated by Italy's highest courtroom in 2015 after a homicide conviction, wrote a Medium submit late Tuesday drawing parallels between her and Lucio and relating varied subjects, from wrongful convictions to motherhood.
Lucio was convicted of murdering her 2-year-old daughter in 2007 and sentenced to loss of life. She is the one Hispanic lady on Texas' loss of life row and is about to be executed subsequent Wednesday. Knox joins a rising listing of celebrities and legislators, from Kim Kardashian to a bipartisan majority of the Texas state Home, who're calling for Lucio's execution to be halted.
In her weblog submit, Knox started by recalling an incident from just a few months in the past when her toddler daughter rolled off the sofa. She described the primary time a baby falls as "a ceremony of passage" for moms and the way, after the preliminary shock wears off, "they're okay and also you're okay, and life goes on. Except it does not."
She added, "Except you are Melissa Lucio, whose daughter died from simply such an accident, whom the state of Texas plans to execute on April twenty seventh for against the law that by no means even occurred."
Lucio's daughter Mariah had a gentle incapacity that made her unstable whereas strolling, and she or he fell down the steps on February 15, 2007. Two days later, the toddler went to sleep and by no means awoke.
That very same evening, authorities interrogated the Texas mother and obtained what Lucio's attorneys argue was a coerced "confession." Whereas Lucio asserted her innocence greater than 100 instances throughout questioning, she went on to falsely take duty for a few of her daughter's accidents, in keeping with the Innocence Mission, a nonprofit that works to exonerate people who've been wrongly convicted.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors portrayed Lucio as an abusive mom who was chargeable for Mariah's accidents. Lucio was sentenced to loss of life in 2008, changing into the primary Latina in Texas to obtain the penalty.
For the reason that conviction, 5 of the 12 jurors within the case have expressed doubts in regards to the verdict and have referred to as for a brand new trial primarily based on unheard proof.
On Tuesday, Knox recalled her personal false admission of guilt in Italy, saying that harmless individuals are extra more likely to implicate themselves if they're in a weak place.
"In my case, I used to be 20, alone abroad, hundreds of miles from dwelling, being interrogated in a overseas language," she wrote. "My roommate had simply been senselessly and brutally murdered, the killer was on the free, and I had nobody to show to for assist. Nobody however the police. And over 53 hours in 5 days, they broke me. Melissa Lucio was weak, too."
Knox pointed to a number of elements, which others have cited, that made Lucio extra more likely to confess, such because the brief timeframe between her daughter's loss of life and the interrogation and her historical past as a lifelong survivor of sexual abuse and home violence.
Lucio's household has referred to as for clemency, disputing the prosecution's argument that she was abusive, and describe her as "an awesome mom" who "by no means laid a hand" on Mariah or her different 13 kids.
"We do not need our mom executed," Lucio's oldest son, John, informed CNN. "We already misplaced our sister. And now to lose our mom for an accident is simply horrible."
Cameron County District Lawyer Luis Saenz has indicated he could step in and block Lucio's execution if she "doesn't get a keep by a sure day."
Saenz, who was not the district lawyer on the time of Lucio's conviction, has the ability to withdraw the execution warrant.
However Knox warned that there is no such thing as a assure that these with the ability to cease subsequent week's execution will achieve this. And even when that occurs, it might not imply justice for Lucio, she mentioned.
"Justice, at least the start of justice, could be an exoneration and instant launch from custody," Knox wrote. "Justice could be seeing Melissa at subsequent 12 months's Innocence Community Convention, the place she would discover, as I did, that she is not alone," Knox wrote.
The annual convention brings collectively exonerees, legal professionals, forensic consultants and advocates who're devoted to overturning wrongful convictions and felony justice reform.
"I want I might meet [Lucio] on the opposite aspect of these double doorways in a resort ballroom and welcome her to our exoneree household, and say, 'You do not have to elucidate a factor, sister. We all know,'" Knox wrote.
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