A Tennessee jury on Friday convicted David Kernell of obstruction of justice and misdemeanor computer intrusion in connection with his hacking of Sarah Palin's e-mail account in 2008, according to local news reports.

The jury acquitted the 22-year-old Kernell of wire fraud, and deadlocked on a fourth charge of identity theft following four days of deliberation.

Kernell famously hacked into Palin's Yahoo webmail account while Palin was the Republican vice presidential candidate. He used publicly available information about Palin to reset her password to "popcorn," then posted screenshots of some of her e-mail, and the new password, to the /b/ message board on 4chan so others could enjoy it.

Prosecutors will now have to decide whether to retry Kernell on the identity-theft charge, based on the theory that the former University of Tennessee student stole Palin’s identity by taking over her Yahoo account.

Palin applauded the verdict Friday in a Facebook post that compared Kernell to Richard Nixon's plumbers. "As Watergate taught us, we rightfully reject illegally breaking into candidates' private communications for political intrigue in an attempt to derail an election," wrote Palin, who testified against Kernell in court last week.

In opting for the misdemeanor version of the computer-intrusion charge, the jury rejected prosecutors' arguments that Kernell broke into Palin's account in furtherance of another criminal act or civil wrongdoing beyond accessing Palin's e-mail.

That means Kernell might have walked away from the trial without a felony conviction, if he hadn't deleted evidence from his hard drive. That, the jury found, constituted felony obstruction of justice.

Kernell is free on bond. A sentencing date has not been set.

Updated 18:30 with Palin's Facebook comments,

Image: Facebook.com

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