[stevepaa]

Mule
Well, if it was clearly the case then you convict. Juries work on reasonable doubt as they did here, and if there is no reasonable doubt, you convict.
The appeals courts rule on technicalities.

So what does that "what if situation" have to do with this case?
Do you have evidence the jury in this case didn't get to see?

This is a group of relatively conservative people from a rural section of CA , but found that the evidence was just not there.

(Santa Maria is an old Spanish land grant, ranching, farming, little town which was not much more than gas station stop on the way to LA via the coast route and has been basically bypassed in the last 20 years since I5 is a more direct route to LA for all the truckers. They have a very conservative background)

And as someone else has pointed out, not guilty does not mean innocent. No one disagrees with that. But the evidence was not there to convict.