Los Angeles Associated Press: Britney Spears scored a symbolic victory in her court case for driving without a license on Tuesday after jurors failed to reach a verdict, prompting a judge to dismiss charges against the singer.

On their third day of deliberations, jurors were deadlocked at 10-2 in favor of acquitting the pop star, who did not attend court during the trial.

Shortly after the stalemate, prosecutors said they would not seek a fresh trial, leaving Judge James Steele to dismiss the charges.

The outcome will be viewed as a victory by Spears, who had pressed for a trial on the grounds she had done nothing wrong, rejecting a plea deal that would have seen her fined 150 dollars and given one year’s probation.

After the mistrial was declared, Spears’s attorney J. Michael Flanagan said the 26-year-old should never have been prosecuted. “This is a misdemeanor. It should have been a fix-it ticket anyway,” Flanagan said.

The case stemmed from an August 2007 incident when paparazzi trailing the singer caught her bumping a car in a parking lot and driving away.

Prosecutors said Spears was later discovered not to have a valid California license. She was charged with a misdemeanor — punishable by jail or a fine.

But Spears’s defense argued the star held a valid Louisiana license at the time of the incident and so was not legally required to hold a California permit because she was not living permanently in the state.

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