A jury found 20-year-old Amara Harris not liable Thursday in an unusual civil trial involving two high school students, a set of disputed AirPods and a ticket issued by a Naperville police officer nearly four years ago.
The officer assigned to Harris’ former school, Naperville North, wrote her a ticket in 2019, when she was 17, that accused her of stealing another girl’s AirPods. Harris and her lawyers had maintained that she picked up the other student’s AirPods accidentally, mistaking them for her own. She declined to pay a fine or settle the case.
The resources devoted to the AirPods case have added to debates over the widespread practice of police ticketing students at school, documented last year by the Tribune and ProPublica in the investigation “The Price Kids Pay.”
The six-person jury received the case Wednesday and announced its verdict early Thursday afternoon.
Two civil-rights attorneys represented Harris; city attorney Joseph Solon Jr. prosecuted the case.
Check back for further updates on this developing story.
