It's been argued in the past that Socrates quite deliberately provoked the jury into killing him - it's hard not to read it, see that far from being humble or defending himself he instead told them they should vote him a pension for his services to Athens, and think that this was just a case of suicide by cop.
I don't want to turn this into /r/politics, but look what's happening to Bradley Manning. I'm pretty sure that even if he were to be put to trial in front of a civilian court the call won't be as close as in the case of Socrates, for a lot of different reasons which I'm not going into details now.
Despite being a cause celebre, the fact remains that Manning's alleged actions were, in fact, illegal. Not that jury nullification doesn't happen, but it's actively discouraged.
I was just reading this morning on the way to work a note made by Voltaire to Montesquieu's "De l'esprit des lois" that the decision in Socrate's trial was in fact a pretty close one, so things were not that bad (he still died, I know). I don't want to turn this into /r/politics, but look what's happening to Bradley Manning. I'm pretty sure that even if he were to be put to trial in front of a civilian court the call won't be as close as in the case of Socrates, for a lot of different reasons which I'm not going into details now.
For those interested, here's the count of the votes in Socrates' trial: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/greek...
> In the case of Socrates, the jury found Socrates guilty on a relatively close vote of 280 to 220. (Interestingly, if less than 100 jurors voted for guilt, the accusers had to pay a fine to cover trial costs.)