A jury in Norfolk, Va. made a bit of history on Wednesday by finding five Somali men guilty of piracy. It's the first conviction for that crime in the U.S. in almost two centuries.

The verdict is a victory for U.S. efforts to fight piracy in the courtroom, coming just months after a judge threw out piracy charges in a similar case in Norfolk this summer, according to this storyby The WSJ's Keith Johnson.

The...