Judge Calls Occupy Protesters The 'Most Affable Defendants' She'd Ever Seen

A judge made an unusual move after a jury acquitted a dozen Occupy Philadelphia protesters of trespassing Tuesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

Judge Nina N. Wright Padilla stepped off the bench and asked all the defendants if she could shake their hands. She called them the "most affable group of defendants I've ever come across."

The Occupy defendants were arrested while protesting Wells Fargo mortgage policies they deemed "racist predatory lending," according to the Inquirer.

Last summer Wells Fargo paid the federal government $175 million to settle claims that it gave blacks and Hispanics risky mortgages while giving whites lower-interest loans.

The jury trial left the Occupy defendants fighting Wells Fargo's policies with a sense that they were in the right after all, the Inquirer reported.

"If this jury has found us innocent, then it must mean that Wells Fargo is guilty," 71-year-old Willard R. Johnson said after trial.