Amanda Knox, Double Jeopardy and the U.S. Policy on Extradition

Call your local law school and ask to speak to the criminal law professors.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

What the squirrel said, though I don't know why U.S. law would have any effect at all. It's an Italian court.

The US doesn't have to extradite if doing so would violate US law, such as double jeopardy. This is why many countries won't extradite to us in capital punishment cases. Their law prohibits capital punishment, therefore they can't extradite to the US.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Extradition is subject to current/existing treaty agreements. The US and Italy have one in current force.

http://www.mcnabbassociates.com/Italy International Extradition Treaty with the United States.pdf

From Iron Mike's overview of the treaty:

Article 5 provides that extradition shall be denied when the offense for which extradition is requested is a political or military offense. Article 6 provides that extradition shall be denied when the person sought has been in jeopardy in the requested State for the same offense. Article 8 provides that extradition shall be denied where the requesting State's statute of limitation bars prosecution or enforcement of the penalty. Article 9 provides that extradition shall be denied when the offense is punishable by death in the requesting, but not the requested, State, unless satisfactory assurances are received that the death penalty, if imposed, will not be carried out.

Click to expand...

This is not the complete language of the treaty.

Article 6 is the double jeopardy clause. It is unlikely that the prosecutor could have appealed the Amanda Knox case in the United States. Hence under US law, Amanda Knox would be placed under jeopardy twice for the same offense. But the issue is in the details, and a bunch of lawyers are going to spend a lot of time arguing this out.

Article 9 is the death penalty clause.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

As I said, a lot of lawyers are going to spend a lot of time arguing this. There is no definitive answer, and until a US court rules, there won't be.

Reason for suggesting a law school professor is they keep up with this sort of stuff. But no one can give you a definitive answer.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

There's also the whole "international politics" side. Remember a treaty is only good as long as both sides play along... it's not set in stone.

I'm sorry that I can't find this article, but I remember reading some time ago that there was an unrelated case in which a woman (a US-Italian dual citizen) had been convicted of a crime in Italy, got out on probation, and came to the US. I don't remember the crime, but the evidence against her was weak at best, and the State department agreed to extradite her on the condition that she be given only probation, not sent to jail. Once she got to Italy, the government uncrossed their fingers and sent her to jail. So (from what I read), they said there was a chance the US government would refuse to extradite Knox because the Italian government had not kept their earlier promises.

JCD is right- you are probably best off to contact a professor/lawyer specializing in criminal or international law.