FLORENCE, Italy — For years, the fate of Amanda Knox has been in the hands of a succession of Italian courts, called on to determine whether on the night of Nov. 1, 2007, she killed Meredith Kercher, her roommate and fellow foreign exchange student in the university town of Perugia. On Thursday, a court in Florence is expected to present its ruling.

Ms. Knox will not be in the courtroom. She will await the verdict in her hometown, Seattle, where she has been living since an appeals court reversed her murder conviction in October 2011. Last year, the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest court, vacated the appellate court ruling and ordered a new trial, which began last fall, propelling Ms. Knox — and her former boyfriend and co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito — back into the news.

“Nothing will ever take away the experience of being wrongfully imprisoned,” Ms. Knox said in an interview last week via Skype, explaining why she chose not to attend, as is her right. “It remains that I would be putting myself in the hands of people who very clearly want me in prison for something that I didn’t do. And I can’t do that. I just can’t. No. No way, no how.”

The intense media attention that the case has stirred from the day that Ms. Kercher was found dead on the floor of her bedroom, her throat slit, is another reason Ms. Knox decided not to come. (Mr. Sollecito has been present for some of the proceedings.)