No need to assign the results of expressions used only for side effects.
diff --git a/Lib/posixpath.py b/Lib/posixpath.py
index 297b68e..6be031b 100644
--- a/Lib/posixpath.py
+++ b/Lib/posixpath.py
@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@
 def lexists(path):
     """Test whether a path exists.  Returns True for broken symbolic links"""
     try:
-        st = os.lstat(path)
+        os.lstat(path)
     except os.error:
         return False
     return True