In my view, whether Amanda Knox is guilty of murder of her former roommate Meredith Kercher is now irrelevant. What is now relevant is whether Knox should be sent back to Italy to be tried for the same crime twice. For some background information, Amanda Knox was tried in 2009 for the murder of roommate Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in an Italian court. She was found guilty and sentenced to 26 years in prison. Her guilty verdict was overturned by an Italian appeals court in 2011, and Knox was allowed to leave Italy. Now the Italian Supreme Court has overturned the appeals court and is allowing a totally new trial of Knox on the same charge.

                              Because the United States has an extradition treaty with Italy, it is possible for Italy to ask for Amanda Knox to be forcibly returned to Italy to face trial. There are of course many complicated legal arguments that can be made here. However, one argument I should make that is paramount to all else is that U.S. judicial law  must come first. I do not know whether Knox is guilty or innocent, and as I said right now that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that according to U.S. judicial law, no U.S. citizen can be tried for the same crime twice. To be tried for the same crime twice is double jeopardy, and is totally unacceptable under U.S. law.

                                 It does not matter if the United States has an extradition treaty with Italy or not; in my view U.S. law must take precedence over Italian law. In a number of cases where the U.S. government sought the extradition of certain individuals in the European Union, a number of countries in the European Union did not extradite their citizens to the United States. Why? Because the United States has the death penalty, and most European Union countries do not. Because a number of European Union countries feared their citizens might face the death penalty, these suspects were not turned over to the United States.

                                  This I can understand—again the national laws of a certain country taking precedence over an extradition treaty. By the same token, U.S. judicial law must take precedence over an extradition treaty where the country in question does not have double jeopardy laws. In this case, Italy does not, and so the United States must not send Amanda Knox back to Italy for this reason. Again it is not a question of guilt or innocence, but one of protecting the rights of the accused from being tried for the same crime twice. If the U.S. government should dare to send Knox back, then it is breaking the U.S. Constitution and the law of this land, and the law of this land MUST come first.