What actually happened in Knox’s apartment on the night of November 1, 2007 will always be a tragic and fascinating question, but if and when she comes before a U.S. magistrate judge to challenge her extradition, the facts of the case will not matter. According to Jacques Semmelman, a New York-based attorney and leading extradition expert, her conviction in Italian court provides “abundant probable cause” to conclude she is guilty of murder.
The idea that double jeopardy could prevent Knox’s extradition, first popularized in the U.S. media after her retrial was announced in 2013, is also suspect. The current extradition treaty between Italy and the U.S. does not list double jeopardy within the country requesting extradition—i.e., Italy in this case—as a grounds for denying extradition.
Knox’s American lawyers could still claim that her extradition is unconstitutional, but according to Washington-based extradition lawyer Bruce Zagaris, “When a requesting country reverses the acquittal and enters a judgment of conviction, U.S. courts have held that there is no constitutional or statutory bar to the U.S. granting extradition.” Semmelman agrees that a double jeopardy defense would likely fail in Knox’s case, citing a 1997 case in which the U.S. extradited a man to Turkey despite the fact that he was convicted of rape in Turkey only after an appeal.
Assuming Knox’s legal recourses fail, her only hope to avoid extradition would be an intercession by the U.S. Secretary of State, who has final approval over all extradition requests. However, it’s hard to see why John Kerry or future Secretaries of State would take such a large risk merely to protect an American citizen from a prison sentence abroad. Knox may have become a cause célèbre in the United States, but she is unpopular in Italy, where polls show a majority of Italians believe she is guilty.
No matter what the Italian Supreme Court’s ultimate decision, it will be viewed with scorn. No new evidence is likely to surface and the various factions for and against Knox have come to their own conclusions long ago. Still, extradition treaties require that we respect the rulings of foreign courts within clearly deliniated parameters. Moreover, the special relationship cultivated between longstanding allies has to take precedence over individual doubts. When news outlets lose sight of that and instead speculate on what country Knox could escape to, it is unclear what kind of world they are rooting for.
Amanda Knox Extradition Should Be Granted | New Republic