Friday, January 31, 2014

I am not going to judge her. I didn't follow the case.




She had chosen (click here) the central Italian city over Milan and Rome because she believed it would be safer.

"She fought so hard to get out there," her father John has said.
"There were quite a few setbacks but she was determined to go and kept persisting and eventually got what she wanted."

Known as Mez to her friends, Meredith saw her time in Italy as a dream trip. Her parents said she was excited about learning the language, meeting new friends and immersing herself in a different culture....

What I don't understand is how can an American be extradited when our constitution clearly states there is no double jeopardy in the USA? 

This was not a hung jury. There was a finding, It was overturned on appeal. Why is Italy retrying this when Americans cannot be held for retrail based in double jeopardy. I find this very odd. 

My deepest sympathies for Meredith's family for their loss. I am sure she was wonderful. I think this retrial may enter into areas of USA Constitutionality. I am not a scholar, but, US law may contradict the Italian laws. I don't see the US State Department acting as a negotiator over and above US law.

Chiara Vasarri and Lorenzo Totaro, ©2014 Bloomberg News 
Published 7:44 am, Friday, January 31, 2014

Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Amanda Knox,(click here) who was convicted by an Italian appeals court yesterday of murdering a U.K. student in 2007, probably will have to wait several months before a definitive ruling in the case, a criminal lawyer said.

Knox, 26, who returned to the U.S. two years ago as a free woman after a court tossed out her 2009 murder conviction, was sentenced in absentia to 28 years and six months in jail for murder and slander by an eight-person jury. Her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito got a 25-year jail term.
Yesterday’s verdicts are not final because lawyers for Knox and Sollecito said they will appeal to Italy’s highest court. “It will take months, they may schedule it around October or November,” said Andrea Castaldo, a criminal lawyer and professor at the University of Salerno, about a possible hearing at Italy’s top court....