From Anne Skove at Court-o-Rama, I learned that Britney Spears was (1) arrested for driving without a California license, (2) went to trial, and (3) ended with a hung jury.  It was old news when Anne posted it, and it’s even older now.  That’s what I get for not keeping abreast of Britney Spears news.

But the story surrounding the Pop Tart’s trial is fascinating (in the John Stewart sort of way).  From the LA Times :

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.

Now the ten to two for acquittal is itself unusual, until one realizes why she was being prosecuted.  The problem wasn’t that she didn’t have a drivers license, but that she didn’t have a California drivers license.  She had one from Louisiana, where she claimed permanent residence, but the prosecution contended that she was really a California resident and, therefore, was required to have a license issued by California.

Now I have no particular concern for Britney Spears.  I’m not a follower, and much preferred her when she was a fresh-faced teenager in parochial school clothing.  My daughter was a fan back then.  I thought she aged poorly.  But the notion that a prosecutor pursued a case against Spears on this spurious basis is outrageous.  Beyond trivial.  And then, the case went to trial.

The city attorney’s office routinely prosecutes people for driving without a license — nearly 3,700 this year alone. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the defendant accepts a guilty plea to the misdemeanor or to a traffic infraction. In other cases, the charge is dropped when a defendant obtains a valid license. A trial is virtually unheard of.

The prosecutor said he knew of no other defendants to go before a jury. Spears’ attorney was more definitive.

“Nobody has ever gone to trial on it. Never,” Flanagan said.

And that’s the case even when people drive with no license at all, not merely an arguably valid license issued by another state.

So chalk up one for celebrity prosecutions, where they would never be treated differently than anyone else.  Of course, Brit, woman of integrity, refused to plead out the case because it would be wrong.

The prosecutor tried to settle the case in exchange for a guilty plea. Initially, he offered her 12 months probation and a $150 fine and when her attorney objected to the probation, he said she could avoid probation by paying the maximum fine — $1,000.

Spears’ attorney rejected that, saying that his client did not want “to buy her way out of probation.”

The upshot was a five-day trial.

The good news, of course, was that Spears could afford to take a hard stance.

“It was multiple thousands of dollars that was wasted in this case,” Flanagan said, adding that his own bill to Spears “is probably a world record” for a driving without a license case.

Or, in legal parlance, Spears is what we call “a good client.”  But the most curious aspect of the trial was that there was no defendant in the room.  Now, I can’t speak for California, but in New York, judges have this crazy expectation that misdemeanor defendants appear in court for trial.  It’s not really an optional thing.  Unless, apparently, you’re Britney Spears.

Spears, 26, did not set 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.

Even without his client on the stand, Flanagan did his job well.  But it has to be interesting to represent Britney Spears.  No matter what anyone says, celebrities are treated differently.