Pardons require a sympathetic governor, which will never happen.
Jury nullification requires that everyone on the jury votes not-guilty, which is a pretty high bar to hit.
A hung jury, on the other hand, simply requires one or more members of the jury to vote not-guilty. He could still be re-tried, of course, but having just one principled person is a lot easier than having all 12.
I didn’t find the peanut rubber, but did find that
OP’s article states that
But I can’t find a actual source for that just endless repeated comments to that effect. I wonder if whoever-originated-that-idea conflated Carver’s peanut work with his other work with Ford: