Grannies Acquitted

A shout out to the "Granny Peace Brigade," a group of . . . ahem. . . mature women who blocked the doors of the Times Square military recruiting center in October 2005 to protest the war in Iraq. (Actually, what they did was cleverer-- they demanded to be allowed to enlist.) The Grannies were on trial for disorderly conduct but were acquitted today.
A New York Times article this morning stated, "Judge Ross clearly recognizes that ruling against grandmothers. . . could be political suicide, or at the very least make him a villain to grandchildren everywhere." While I think that the grannies' defense lawyer (Norman Siegel of the NYCLU) was canny in using sympathy for grandmothers as a key element of his strategy, I wonder whether the grannies can be said to have had a fair trial-- or rather, I wonder whether conventional activist types would have been acquitted. Good for the grannies for recognizing that they have a sort of immunity granted to them due to their age, and manipulating that immunity to their advantage.