Britney Spears case ends in mistrial
Panel splits 10 to 2 in favor of acquitting the pop singer of driving without a license.
She's been called a pop tart, a train wreck and a walking cautionary tale, but is Britney Spears a misdemeanant?
The jury is out. Literally.
After three days of deliberations, a dozen citizens threw up their hands Tuesday and said they could not agree on whether the oft-troubled entertainer was guilty of driving without a license during a fender bender last year. Ten jurors wanted to acquit. Two voted for conviction.
A prosecutor later said that in light of the jury split, he was dropping the case, but not his belief that Spears was guilty. Voicing a complaint common to those who prosecute famous defendants in matters big and small, Deputy City Atty. Michael Amerian said, "It just goes to show, I think, how difficult it is to convict any celebrity of a crime here in Los Angeles."The grudging dismissal was a fitting conclusion to a 13-month legal battle that featured lofty principles, rock-bottom stakes and the complete absence of the woman at its center.
Spears, 26, did not step foot in Superior Court in Van Nuys during the trial. In court papers, her attorney wrote that the singer was "unable to participate meaningfully in this matter." Her father, Jamie, who has controlled her estate, finances and healthcare since shortly after her January hospitalization in a psychiatric ward, testified on her behalf, but he refused a request from her own lawyer that she take the stand.
"Britney doesn't like court," the lawyer, Michael Flanagan, shrugged.
The actual implications of the misdemeanor were minimal for both sides. A guilty plea would not have meant jail time or even points on Spears' driving record. And by the time the trial got underway, she had been licensed in California for more than a year.
"This is not the crime of the century," the prosecutor conceded in his summation.
The charge stemmed from an Aug. 6, 2007, accident in which Spears' sedan struck a parked car in Studio City. A hit-and-run charge was dropped after she reached a civil settlement with the other motorist. The license charge -- filed after investigators pulled her DMV records and found that she was not licensed in California -- remained.
The only issue before jurors was whether Spears considered Los Angeles her true home -- "domicile" under the vehicle code -- and therefore needed a state license. Her defense argued that her native Louisiana was her real home. Her father testified that she carried a Louisiana license at the time of the accident because she planned to return there as soon as child custody arrangements allowed.
