Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is accused of violating the Espionage Act, will not be returning to the U.S. to face trial because a British judge denied his extradition for fear that he would commit suicide if incarcerated here.

British District Judge Vanessa Baraitser made her ruling on January 4, based on testimony from defense psychiatrists who argue that Assange was planning to commit suicide if he was forced to stand trial in a U.S. court. His defense lawyers provided evidence that Assange suffers from depression, had a razor blade in his cell, and sought absolution from a priest.

In a 132-page ruling, she said, “The overall impression is of a depressed and sometimes despairing man who is genuinely fearful about his future.”

Similar findings were made last year when the court heard witnesses who testified that Assange, a 49-year-old Australian, suffered from fragile mental health and Asperger’s syndrome in addition to his being at high risk of suicide. Both British extradition law and European human rights laws state that a judge may block extradition for health reasons or if extradition would result in “unjust or oppressive treatment.”

These laws made it possible for the judge to not rule on the merits of Assange's legal case. Instead, she said that she believes Assange could get a fair trial by an impartial jury on the 18 federal crimes with which he was charged. These include obtaining and publishing classified diplomatic cables that contained military information about wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Justice Department told the Washington Post that they were pleased that the judge’s ruling was not based on the legal arguments in the case. He said they will appeal the ruling and again ask that Assange be transported to Northern Virginia to face the charges that could result in a 175-year sentence in a maximum-security prison.

The appeal process could take several months due to Assange’s poor health and current COVID-19 lockdowns in England. President-Elect Joe Biden’s imminent inauguration could also change things. Currently, Assange supporters in the US have urged President Trump to add him to his growing list of pardons, since the president has previously praised him for his role in releasing hacked and helpful emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 race. If no pardon is given, Assange’s fate will be up to President Biden, whose transition team is being briefed on the case.

The judge’s ruling focused on the environment in Administrative Maximum Facility (AMX), the supermax American prison in Florence, Colorado, where Assange would likely be imprisoned. She compared conditions there to the ones in London’s Belmarsh prison where Assange has been for the past two years, ever since the Embassy of Ecuador revoked his asylum. She also twice cited the suicide of alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, while he was on suicide watch, to support her concerns.

The Washington Post noted, “In 2017, the most recent year for which statistics from the Department of Justice are available, 33 people committed suicide while in federal custody.”

While Assange watched from inside a glass booth in the back of her courtroom, Judge Baraitser said she believed he could not safely remain in lockdown 23 hours a day. She stated, “Faced with the conditions of near total isolation without the protective factors which limited his risk at HMP Belmarsh, I am satisfied the procedures described by the U.S. will not prevent Mr. Assange from finding a way to commit suicide and for this reason I have decided extradition would be oppressive by reason of mental harm...”

Assange’s attorney Edward Fitzgerald said he will seek bail where he will offer new evidence that disputes a previous finding that Assange will pose a flight risk. Also, following the ruling, the Mexican government offered Assange asylum, with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador saying Mexico would guarantee that Assange “didn’t interfere in the political issues of any country.”

Since the publication of his questionably obtained documents, there has been a debate over Assange’s status as a journalist. Prosecutors argue that no ethical journalist would ever help a source illegally obtain documents, while his supporters, including the American Civil Liberties Union, believe that the First Amendment prohibits journalism from ever being a crime.

Assange’s legal troubles began in 2010 when his WikiLeaks media outlet released footage of Baghdad taken from a U.S. Army helicopter. Its visuals showed cannons being fired into a suburban crowd while American soldiers continued to shoot at survivors, including two Reuters journalists. At the end of the video, Assange’s name was listed as “producer and creative director.”

While being attacked by politicians on both sides of the aisle, his actions were applauded by First Amendment groups and respected publications. In a Time magazine cover story, he said, from an undisclosed location that WikiLeaks “tries to make the world more civil and act against abusive organizations that are pushing it in the opposite direction.”

By 2012, Assange was widely discredited and sought by many European and North American governments for being a hacker of classified documents, and he went into hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy from 2012 to April 2019. When his asylum at the Embassy ended, he was captured by the British. In 2016, however, and just as people were beginning to forget him and his Baghdad video, from his bedroom in the Embassy he released tens of thousands of stolen DNC documents. His alleged cooperation with the Russians tarnished his First Amendment credentials.

The US intelligence community investigated how WikiLeaks obtained the documents and concluded that they were obtained from Russian hackers who were trying to disrupt the 2016 election. Then-candidate Trump praised Assange over 100 times in the final weeks of the campaign. Assange later appeared in a Fox News interview by Sean Hannity, where he revealed that he obtained the DNC documents from one of its former employees.

Questions of bail and future extradition remain, as well as what Assange’s legacy will be: hero or villain? Hi-tech terrorist or First Amendment champion? Courageous exposer of secrets or unprincipled partisan? A trial might help us decide.