On Martin Luther King Day in January, eight protesters against police brutality locked themselves together across the northbound half of Highway 99 in South Lake Union. "Today, we have decided to put our bodies in the street for four hours and twenty-eight minutes," they said in a communique given to the press. "We do this to represent the 4.5 hours Mike Brown was left in the street after being killed by a police officer."

Throughout the afternoon, police cut them out of their lockboxes and took them to jail.

City of Seattle prosecutors pressed charges of pedestrian interference—a gross misdemeanor punishable by fines and up to 364 days in jail, though the city says it wouldn't have sought more than five days of jail time. Yesterday afternoon, after a week-long trial, a jury rejected the city's case, finding four of the protesters not guilty.

Juror Molly Wizenberg, reached by phone on her way out of the courtroom, said, "They did prevent traffic from going northbound on [Highway] 99 for a couple of hours. However, the city's case didn't succeed in convincing me that what they had done was unlawful. I saw what they did as a protest that created an inconvenience."

Wizenberg said she was sympathetic to the protesters' political objectives, so she tried to imagine if the Ku Klux Klan had engaged in the same kind of protest. "Certainly, I might find the message odious," she said. "But I would protect their right to do it as an act of free speech. Sure, it caused an inconvenience and a disruption, but it didn't physically or verbally hurt someone, so I couldn't imagine punishing them for it. It seemed to me to be a pretty cut and dry First Amendment situation."

She said the jury took less than an hour to reach a decision, and she was surprised by how easily they reached consensus. Someone pointed out that traffic on the highway was stalled for hours due to accidents all the time.

"It felt like a huge validation of all the protests," said one of the defendants, 28-year-old Gillian Locascio, "and the need for people to stand up in the city and fight for the change we need to see."

Is pressing charges against protesters engaged in civil disobedience—again, on Martin Luther King Day, of all days—a good use of the city attorney's resources? Pete Holmes, the city attorney, said it is: "I value the First Amendment right of protest, including civil disobedience. Those who would do violence or damage property or injure or endanger others, however, are not engaged in protected activities, but are instead committing crimes. I respect the judgment of the jury, but respectfully disagree with its decision."

A spokesperson for Holmes said his office still intends to prosecute seven other protesters who were arrested that day on the highway—their lawyers agreed to a continuance and they're being charged separately—this fall.

Teri Rogers Kemp, an attorney for the defendants, said the city should dismiss the charges. "The jurors in Seattle are really smart," she said. "The next jury will very likely do the same thing."

This post has been updated.