ROME (AP) — American Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend expect to learn their fate Wednesday when Italy's highest court hears their appeal of their guilty verdicts in the brutal 2007 murder of Knox's British roommate. Several outcomes are possible, including confirmation of the verdicts, a new appeals round, or even a ruling that amounts to an acquittal in the sensational case that has captivated audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 
 FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2007 file photo, Amanda Knox, left, and Raffaele Sollecito, are seen outside the rented house where 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher was found dead in Perugia, Italy.... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this July 1, 2014 file photo Raffaele Sollecito speaks during a press conference in Rome. The founder of a heavily visited Wiki site about the prosecutions of U.S. star defendant Amanda Knox and her... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Jan. 31, 2014 file photo Amanda Knox prepares to leave the set following a television interview, in New York. The founder of a heavily visited Wiki site about the prosecutions of U.S. star... (Associated Press) 
 
 Here is a look at the case, the possible outcomes and issues that might come into play. 
 
 THE CASE: 
 
 Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student from Britain, was found dead Nov. 2, 2007 in the apartment she shared with Knox in the Umbrian city of Perugia where both women were studying. Kercher's throat was slashed and she had been sexually assaulted. 
 
 Knox, now 27, and Raffaele Sollecito, who turns 31 on Thursday, were convicted of the murder by a trial court in Perugia in 2009. They were freed in 2011 after a Perugia appellate court overturned the convictions. They found themselves back in an appellate court after the Court of Cassation vacated the acquittals in 2013 in a harsh rebuke of the Perugia chief appellate judge's reasoning. 
 
 Last year, an appeals court in Florence convicted the pair, sentencing Knox to 28 ½ years and Sollecito to 25 years. The court ruled that the pair acted in concert with Rudy Hermann Guede, a drifter born in the Ivory Coast who is serving a 16-year sentence for his role in the murder. 
 
 Knox, who spent nearly four years in jail during the investigation and after her lower court conviction, remains free in the United States. She has vowed never to return willingly to Italy. 
 
 IF THE CONVICTION IS CONFIRMED: 
 
 If the high court upholds the Florence convictions, the prosecutor's office in Florence would issue an order to execute the sentences. In the case of Sollecito, who has remained in Italy, police would seek to take him into custody immediately after receiving the order. For Knox, the situation is more complicated. The prosecutor would ask the Justice Ministry to seek her extradition, and the Justice Ministry must decide whether to comply. 
 
 Italy and the United States have an extradition treaty, and there is no formal reason for the request not to be made, according to Andrea Scella, a professor of criminal law and process at the University of Udine. However, extradition retains a political element, and the government could decide not to advance a request, accepting any political consequences from the Parliament or voters, he said. 
 
 Issues like the severity of the crime and the length of the penalty influence extradition requests. Italy's request could propose having Knox serve the sentence in the United States, as an alternative. 
 
 The timing of Italy's request is uncertain, but could unfold over months or longer. 
 
 IF THE HIGH COURT ORDERS A NEW TRIAL: 
 
 The high court can throw out all or any part of the Florence appeals court guilty verdict and order yet another appeals trial — the third in this case. It is not unprecedented in Italy for a case to be sent back to for multiple appellate rounds. In fact, one case involving the 1972 murder of a police commissioner reached the Court of Cassation nine times before the verdicts were finalized, 28 years after the murder. 
 
 No appellate trial date can be set until the reasoning for the court's decision is issued, which would contain very specific directions to the new appeals court on which elements of the case needed to be re-examined. The court has 90 days to issue its reasoning. 
 
 IF THE COURT ACQUITS: 
 
 The high court can throw out the guilty verdict without ordering a new trial, which is tantamount to acquittal. Such a decision is rare, experts say, and would require the court to give a full reasoning for its decision — also within 90 days. 
 
 For Knox and Sollecito, it would be "case closed" for their criminal court proceedings. Knox would be able to travel to Europe and Italy without risk of arrest. Sollecito, whose passport has been seized, would have his freedom to travel restored. 
 
 THE ROGUE JUROR'S INTERVIEW: 
 
 One of the civilian jurors on the panel that convicted the pair in the Florence appellate case gave an interview last week to the magazine Oggi saying she believed there was not enough evidence "to justify such a severe conviction." The interview, which violates secrecy of the deliberations, appeared to confirm rumors that the guilty finding was not unanimous. However, unanimous decisions are not required and it is unlikely to be mentioned in any of the legal teams' arguments before the high court nor have any bearing on the decision. ||||| Amanda Knox pauses emotionally while speaking during a news conference at Sea-Tac International Airport, Washington after landing there on a flight from Italy, in this October 4, 2011, file photo. 
 
 NEW YORK The possibility that American Amanda Knox could be convicted of murder and extradited to Italy for punishment could force U.S. courts to enter legal territory that is largely uncharted, legal experts said. 
 
 Italy's top court on Tuesday ordered the retrial of Knox, 25, for the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher. 
 
 The move potentially pits a U.S. constitutional ban on double jeopardy, or being tried twice for the same offense after an acquittal, against international extradition agreements, experts said. 
 
 The issue hinges on whether a lower court decision overturning her conviction amounted to an acquittal, they said. 
 
 If Knox is retried after she was acquitted, that would violate her constitutional rights, said Christopher Blakesley, a law professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas who specializes in international criminal law. On the other hand, the United States entered into an extradition treaty and, in doing so, accepted Italy's criminal justice system, he added. 
 
 "If Knox is found guilty, there's still a whole lot of room for battle before she would ever be extradited," Blakesley said. 
 
 Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were accused of killing 21-year-old Meredith Kercher during a drug-fuelled sexual encounter in Perugia, Italy. The two were found guilty in 2009 and sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison respectively. 
 
 In 2011, an appeals court, comprised of a panel of judges and lay jurors, overturned the convictions of Knox and Sollecito after forensic experts challenged evidence from the original trial. Knox and Sollecito were released after four years in prison, and Knox returned to her family home near Seattle. 
 
 Prosecutors and Kercher family lawyers appealed to Italy's high court, the Court of Cassation, calling the prior ruling "contradictory and illogical." 
 
 On Tuesday, the Court of Cassation agreed to overturn the appeals court's acquittals. The high court has not yet provided a full reasoning for its decision, and a date has not yet been set for the new trial, which will be held before a different court of appeals in Florence. 
 
 Knox's Italian lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said via email that the new trial would likely occur in late 2013 or early 2014. Knox does not intend to return to Italy for the proceeding, he said, and the court of appeals can retry the case in absentia. 
 
 The Italian government could ask for extradition once the Italian courts have reached a final decision, Dalla Vedova said. If it does, the U.S. Department of State would then have to decide whether to act on the request. If the State Department chooses to comply, it would then deploy the U.S. Attorney's Office to a U.S. court to seek Knox's extradition. 
 
 What is unpredictable is how such a case would play out in front of a U.S. judge who would have to weigh the U.S. constitutional protection against double jeopardy with the 1984 bilateral extradition treaty between the United States and Italy. The treaty contains a provision that attempts to protect against double jeopardy, but it is not clear whether that provision would bar extradition in Knox's case. 
 
 The legal question would be whether Knox was acquitted, as U.S. courts would define the term, or whether the case was merely reversed and still open for further appeal, said criminal lawyer and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. 
 
 "It's very complicated, and there's no clear answer. It's in the range of unpredictable," Dershowitz said. 
 
 Much of the complication stems from the differences between the Italian and U.S. legal systems. In the United States, if a defendant is acquitted, the case cannot be retried. 
 
 In Italy, prosecutors and lawyers for interested parties, such as Kercher's family, can file an appeal. Unlike American courts of appeal, which only consider legal errors in the courts below, Italian courts of appeal, which are comprised of both judges and jurors, can reconsider the facts of a case. 
 
 Depending on the Italian high court's reason for overturning Knox's acquittal, it is possible that the court of appeals could consider new evidence that's introduced, said Dalla Vedova. As a result, a defendant can effectively be retried in the course of one case in Italy. 
 
 Dalla Vedova said the high court's decision does not raise a double jeopardy problem because the retrial would not be a new case but rather a continuation of the same case on appeal. 
 
 Other defendants who have been acquitted in other countries and then convicted on appeal have attempted to raise the double jeopardy principle to avoid extradition, without much success, said Mary Fan, a law professor at the University of Washington who specializes in cross-border criminal law. 
 
 The text of the treaty prevents extradition if the person has already been convicted or acquitted of the same offense by the "requested" country, which would be the United States in Knox's case because Italy would be requesting extradition from the United States. Because Knox was never prosecuted or acquitted for homicide in the United States, the treaty's double-jeopardy provision would not prevent Knox's extradition, said Fan. 
 
 While the issue is rare in the United States, several courts have rejected the double jeopardy argument in similar cases. In 2010, a federal court in California found that a man who was acquitted of murder in Mexico and later convicted after prosecutors appealed the acquittal, could not claim double jeopardy to avoid extradition to Mexico. That court cited a 1974 decision from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, that reached the same conclusion with respect to Canadian law, which also allows the government to appeal an acquittal. 
 
 When asked about the potential extradition of Knox at a press briefing on Tuesday, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department said the question was hypothetical and declined to comment. 
 
 (Reporting By Terry Baynes; Editing by Sandra Maler) ||||| Story highlights Amanda Knox's attorney says appeal is certain, too soon to talk of extradition 
 
 Italian court finds Amanda Knox, ex-boyfriend guilty of murder in retrial 
 
 Knox says the legal proceedings have gotten out of hand, are perverted 
 
 Both were convicted previously of British student's murder, later acquitted on appeal 
 
 An Italian appeals court convicted former exchange student Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito on murder charges Thursday night. 
 
 Prosecutors said the couple had killed Meredith Kercher in November 2007. They were convicted two years later of murder, but those charges were overturned on appeal in 2011. 
 
 A judge said Thursday that Knox, also convicted of slander, was sentenced in absentia to 28 1/2 years in prison. Sollecito's sentence was 25 years. 
 
 Knox, who was at home in Seattle, Washington, said her conviction would bring no consolation to the Kercher family. 
 
 "I am frightened and saddened by this unjust verdict," she said in written remarks. "Having been found innocent before, I expected better from the Italian justice system. The evidence and accusatory theory do not justify a verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. ...There has always been a marked lack of evidence." 
 
 She called the legal proceedings a travesty. 
 
 "This has gotten out of hand. Most troubling is that it was entirely preventable," she said. "I beseech those with the knowledge and authority to address and remediate the problems that worked to pervert the course of justice and waste the valuable resources of the system." 
 
 Knox also said that Kercher's family had suffered greatly. 
 
 "Their grief over Meredith's terrible murder will follow them forever. They deserve respect and support." 
 
 What comes next 
 
 Presiding Judge Alessandro Nencini has 90 days to write his arguments behind the jury's ruling. Once that is out, lawyers have 90 days to appeal. 
 
 Knox's attorney, Ted Simon, said there will certainly be an appeal and cautioned that extradition shouldn't yet be a part of the conversation surrounding the case. 
 
 "It's really not in play right now, because first of all, she has another appeal to the Supreme Court of Italy," he told CNN's Anderson Cooper 360. "In Italy, under their system, you're still actually presumed innocent until that third, final stage." 
 
 Simon said that if extradition does become an issue, Knox has "very substantial defenses" that can be used. 
 
 "But I think we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves," he told CNN. "The bottom line is, there is no evidence. There was no evidence, and there never will be any evidence, and that's why this is such a gross miscarriage of justice." 
 
 Legal analysts debated whether the U.S. would send Knox back to Italy if Rome requests extradition. 
 
 It is unlikely that Knox will return to Italy to serve additional prison time because U.S. law dictates that a person cannot be tried twice on the same charge, a legal expert told CNN. 
 
 "She was once put in jeopardy and later acquitted," said Sean Casey, a former prosecutor who is now a partner at Kobre & Kim in New York. "Under the treaty (between the two nations), extradition should not be granted." 
 
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 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Amanda Knox at her parents' home in Seattle, Washington, on March 27, 2015. Knox and Raffaele Sollecito (not pictured) were acquitted by Italy's highest court in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher. Hide Caption 1 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Amanda Knox appears on NBC's "Today" show. Knox spent four years in jail because of murder charges in the death of her roommate Meredith Kercher while studying abroad in Perugia, Italy. Hide Caption 2 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Appeals Court Judge Alessandro Nencini, center, reads the verdict in the death of British student Meredith Kercher in Florence, Italy, on Thursday, January 30, 2014. The appeals court upheld the convictions of Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the 2007 murder of her British roommate. Knox was sentenced to 28½ years in prison, raising the specter of a long legal battle over her extradition. Sollecito's sentence was 25 years. Hide Caption 3 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Sollecito, left, and his father, Francesco, leave after attending the final hearing before the verdict on January 30. After nearly 12 hours of deliberation, the court reinstated the guilty verdict first handed down against Knox and Sollecito in 2009. Hide Caption 4 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese bartender Knox originally accused of Kercher's murder, talks to the press outside the courthouse during a break form the appeal trial of Knox and Sollecito on September 30. Hide Caption 5 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Knox and her former boyfriend Sollecito were convicted in 2009 to 25 years in prison (Sollecito got 26 years). The conviction was overturned in 2011 for "lack of evidence." But Italy's Supreme Court decided last year to retry the case, saying the jury that acquitted them didn't consider all the evidence and that discrepancies in testimony needed to be answered. Hide Caption 6 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found dead with her throat slit in an apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia, Italy, on November 2, 2007. Hide Caption 7 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial When Knox was detained for questioning in 2007, she implicated Lumumba, the owner of a bar where Knox worked. Lumumba was taken into custody and released after two weeks in prison when his alibi was corroborated. He later won a libel suit against Knox. Hide Caption 8 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Sollecito , Knox's boyfriend at the time of the murder, was convicted in December 2009 with Knox and released when their cases were overturned. Prosecutors testified that police scientists found Sollecito's genetic material on a bra clasp of Kercher's found in her room, while his defense claimed there wasn't enough DNA for a positive ID. Hide Caption 9 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivory Coast native raised in Perugia, was convicted separately from Knox and Sollecito and is now serving 16 years. Guede admitted to being with Kercher on the night she died, but said he didn't kill her. Both Knox and Sollecito argued that he was the killer, and Guede suggested the couple took Kercher's life. Hide Caption 10 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Meredith Kercher's family lawyer Francesco Maresca, left, argued in court in 2011 that the multiple stab wounds implied more than one aggressor killed Kercher. Pictured from left are Maresca, Kercher's father John, sister Stephanie, brother Lyle and brother John at a press conference in 2008. Hide Caption 11 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Carlo Dalla Vedova, one lawyer on Knox's defense team, argued in court that "the only possible decision to take is that of absolving Amanda Knox" in his closing argument for her appeal hearing. Hide Caption 12 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Carlo Pacelli represented Patrick Lumumba in his civil suit case. He called Knox two-faced and a "she-devil." Hide Caption 13 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Giulia Bongiorno, the lead lawyer on Raffaele Sollecito's defense team, compared Knox to Jessica Rabbit on the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Knox is not bad, just "drawn that way," Bongiorno said in her closing statements in the 2011 trial. Hide Caption 14 of 14 
 
 CNN legal analyst Mark O'Mara said that the United States has to respect the treaty. 
 
 "We have to follow the letter of the law," he said Thursday. 
 
 Knox says she won't go back 
 
 Kercher, 21, of Great Britain, was found partially nude in a pool of blood in the house she shared with Knox in the picturesque town of Perugia, where both women were exchange students. 
 
 Knox has said she is afraid to return to Italy, where she spent four years behind bars. 
 
 "I will become ... a fugitive," she told Italian daily La Repubblica this month, when asked what she would do if she was found guilty in the second trial. 
 
 Italy's Supreme Court in March overturned the pair's acquittals, saying that the jury did not consider all the evidence and that discrepancies in testimony needed to be answered. 
 
 The case was sent to a retrial in Florence. 
 
 Ruling unclear 
 
 The retrial began in September, refocusing international attention on the case that grabbed headlines in Italy, Britain and the United States -- but neither Knox nor Sollecito were present in court. 
 
 Both Knox and Sollecito have maintained their innocence. 
 
 'Fugitive' 
 
 Knox, 26, and Sollecito, 29, were convicted in 2009 of killing Kercher, who was found with more than 40 stab wounds and a deep gash in her throat. 
 
 Speaking on Thursday, Knox's defense team asked for an acquittal. 
 
 Knox has always denied murdering Kercher and has maintained she is not guilty in a written statement to the Florence court. 
 
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 "I must repeat to you. I'm innocent. I did not rape, I did not steal ... I did not kill Meredith," Knox said in a lengthy e-mail presented by her lawyer to the court in December. 
 
 Sollecito was in the Dominican Republic at the start of the retrial but returned to Italy. 
 
 In November, he took to the stand to make a spontaneous declaration, saying the charges against him were "absurd." 
 
 "For me, it's a nightmare that goes beyond imagination," he said of what he's been through. 
 
 'No one remembers Meredith' 
 
 "They are tired of this long trial and they want justice," Francesci Maresca, attorney for the Kercher family, said. 
 
 The Kercher family welcomed the retrial ruling, Maresca said in March, adding they believed the ruling that acquitted Knox and Sollecito was "superficial and unbalanced." 
 
 They believe more than one person was in the room when Kercher was killed, he said. 
 
 "No one remembers Meredith, while the two defendants write books, speak to the media and earn money," Maresca told the court in closing remarks last month.
– Yet another ruling in the Amanda Knox case is coming from Italy's highest court today. Knox and then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted in the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher in 2009, acquitted on appeal in 2011 (at which point Knox returned to the US), had that acquittal overturned in 2013, and were then found guilty again last year. As the New York Times and the AP report, Italy's top court, the Court of Cassation, has a number of options: Confirm the convictions: That would mean Italy would likely attempt to extradite Knox, who has maintained her innocence and vowed not to return to the country willingly, though there is a chance the Justice Ministry would decline to do so. Sollecito, who is still in Italy, would go to prison immediately to serve his sentence. Order new appellate trials for Knox and/or Sollecito: Yes, you read that right: This saga may still not be over. If this court decides to throw out all or part of the appeals court's guilty verdict, it will likely order a third trial. (To give you an idea of how long this could go on, one 1972 murder case went to the Court of Cassation nine times before a final verdict was issued, 28 years later.) Throw out the guilty verdict without ordering new trials: This would amount to an acquittal, leaving Knox free to visit Italy without fear of arrest, but the AP notes that "such a decision is rare." If an extradition request is made for Knox, a professor of international law tells the Times the US will likely grant it, though it would be a "hard" decision. The two countries do have an extradition treaty, and another expert tells the AP there is no formal reason—though there are a number of political ones—for Italy to not bother asking in the first place. (Some have argued the concept of "double jeopardy" could be used to block Knox's extradition, though others have debunked that idea.) It's not clear when the ruling is expected, but the BBC's live updates noted that the hearing was "underway" as of 7am Eastern time.