The peace grannies, were acquitted yesterday when Judge Ross determined that “there was credible evidence that the grandmothers had left room for people to enter the recruitment center, and that therefore they had been wrongly arrested,” per the NY Times.

In another Times article yesterday, Anemona Hartocollis provides a fantastic characterization of the trial and the larger questions at work in it. “To the prosecution, this is a case of disorderly conduct. To the defendants, it is a test of the constitutional right to free speech, and the morality of war,” reports Hartocollis.

As she points out, the defense spun a story about these women that highlighted both their life accomplishments and essential “granny-ness.” She goes on,

the defense is trying to portray the trial as a referendum on grandmotherhood itself, and they are milking that all-American concept to the hilt, almost as deftly as the defense in "Miracle on 34th Street," the 1947 feel-good chestnut, milked the American belief in Santa Claus.

Although the prosecution’s case focused primarily on the disorderly conduct charge, the trial itself was an opportunity for the grandmothers to speak out against the war. And, as a speech strategy, it seems effective: they have been covered by most major American newspapers and have received coverage from South Africa to China.

It is a testament to the power of civil disobedience and its attraction to forums where that speech can be amplified – that is, when you’ve got as intriguing of an angle as grannies.