Quote:
Originally Posted by greazzer
I understood the Italian courts threw out the conviction, so it couldn't be double jeopardy. Same in US ... if the appellate courts overrule the lower court's conviction, the government gets another crack at the defendant. Same if you're convicted in the State Courts ... the Fed's could go after you too under the seperate soverign doctrine.
Can the Italians really grab her ?
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Not exactly.
The appellate court ACQUITTED her. Thus, double jeopardy would attach, at least under US law.
Had the appellate court instead remanded the issue back to the trial court with instructions to exclude evidence, etc., then it's the same case, so no double jeopardy. But the Italian court did not do that.
However, the Italians don't have anything like our fifth amendment provision regarding double jeopardy, so this is all semantics to them. I don't know what their rules are for excluding evidence, either. If they can simply retry her using the same tainted evidence, I'm not sure what the point of the whole exercise has been. That said, the appellate judge who acquitted her must disclose all of his rationale, and then both sides get to argue about what it means, so it does seem there is some possibility tainted evidence would be excluded. In that case, the prosecutors really have nothing to tie her to the crime other than the fact that they shared a residence, and whatever allegations the drifter made against her and Sollecito.
Assuming she is convicted again, it will be interesting to see if we will honor an extradition request. Will we allow our principles of double jeopardy that protect US citizens to overrule our reciprocal agreements regarding extradition?
There is very little clear about all of this.