You’d have to believe so many fantasies not to go for murder! Guns go off by themselves! I was just shooting at seals! I found it in a t-shirt under a bench!
I have no doubt that the DA’s office messed up - perhaps, on purpose, to send a message to the president.
Color me cynical.
Possible but, in my opinion, unlikely-- prosecutors want good won-lost records to advance their careers.
Also possible, and probably more likely, is that at least some of the jurors wanted to send Trump a message. (The jury deliberated for four days, which suggests there was a lot of disagreement.) On the other hand, they did convict him of one felony (illegal possession of a weapon by a felon), so maybe they honestly had a reasonable doubt.
But either way, the jury's power of nullification is a feature of the jury system, and has been since at least the trial of William Penn in 1670. Jury nullification does not always result in verdicts we're happy with, but the right of trial by jury is enshrined in the Constitution, and I'd rather not see it changed.