It is going to be difficult to get a conviction regardless of the statute.
Well, two things in regards to that...
One thing is that if someone is going by the law that is on the books, it's an open and shut case... in that it was lost property, it was sold and the law states that doing so is a crime. In that sense, it's absolutely clear on the face of it with the facts that no one has in dispute.
The second thing is whether a jury will follow the law in its decision. So, what you're saying is that there may be a situation of "jury nullification" in which the jury decides not to follow the law in convicting someone.
And that's true, there can always be "jury nullification" as that's definitely something that a jury can do -- refuse to follow the law. A jury can always refuse to convict a clearly guilty party. It's happened before and it will probably happen again.
But, just because "Jury Nullification" can happen doesn't mean that people are not to be prosecuted for crimes that they commit. And in this case, you'll see a prosecution. Whether a jury will refuse to convict a clearly guilty person is another matter.
No, not jury nullification. Our legal system is built on proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This whole thing is a cluster. Jury nullification means that the prosecutor has met the burden of proof and the jury just doesn’t like the law. Beyond a reasonable doubt means that at least one juror does not think that the prosecutor has met the burden.
You believe that the prosecutor has already proved the case when nobody has seen the case.
Prototypes end up where they are not supposed to all the time. At this time it is not clear why that prototype was in a bar and not locked away in a lab. During discovery, the defense is going to get to make a number of Apple employees very uncomfortable. They will make them even more uncomfortable during a trial. If the defense gets their way, they will get a chance to drag Job’s away from making computers and sit in front of a stenographer. This serves two purposes, if they can make things uncomfortable enough, a big company like Apple can make this case go away regardless of what the DA claims. Second, if you get enough depositions, it is easy to start finding inconsistencies creating the seed of doubt to get your client off the hook.
When this little drama has fulfilled everyone’s needs, it will quietly go away.