Not really sure what to put here…I usually put relevant excerpts, but that got this post deleted for doing that
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Hsiung is now being held in jail at least until his sentencing hearing on November 30 (like many other people detained in Sonoma County, he’s only allowed to leave his cell for 30 minutes per day, DxE communications director Cassie King told me).
“A big feature of these trials has been the opportunity to expose the lawlessness of the industry and juxtapose that with the trivial infractions by people who are rescuing animals … When you aren’t able to make that contrast for the jury, it’s a lot harder to win.”
Theft charges have opened the door for activists to show evidence of the health and physical condition of the animals they took, to try to persuade jurors that they were so sick that they wouldn’t have made it to slaughter, making them worthless to their owners — a defense that proved successful in DxE’s recent trials in Utah and Merced, California.
The DA office’s involvement in the Farm Bureau event “was to provide the attendees with information about criminal law as it pertained to trespassing,” Sonoma County Assistant District Attorney Brian Staebell told Vox in an email.
One of DxE’s major goals in its trials has been to win the right to present a “necessity defense,” in which a defendant argues that they had no option but to commit a crime to prevent a greater evil from occurring, like breaking into a hot car to save a baby or dog inside.
For example, Passaglia placed a gag order on Hsiung, barring him from talking to media during the trial, which was condemned as unconstitutional by UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and by the ACLU of Northern California.
The original article contains 3,561 words, the summary contains 279 words. Saved 92%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Laura Passaglia, the Sonoma County Superior Court judge who presided over the trial, barred Hsiung from showing most evidence of animal cruelty, depriving him of the ability to show his motives for entering the farms.
What a bitch.
The part where she either:
A. Is literally being paid to look the other way
or
B. Doesn’t want anything to come to light that could affect her way of life
Or any combination of those
Or she’s just a bitch
I hate this but I think the judge is trying to keep the crimes seperate. The trial is not about what illegal things the farm was doing, it was a trial about this person breaking the law when they broke into the farm. I don’t know what the laws are exactly where this is but a lot of the time animals are owned which puts them in the category of property but with special protections. So the judge is looking at it from you broke into someone’s property to take video or whatever of someone treating their property poorly. I hate this because without doing this it’s incredibly hard to get evidence while going through the process legally. It’s usually setup in a way that gives ample opportunity for the offender to hide any wrong doing before inspection or other laws that hinder the animal rights people. If a police officer showed up without a warrant and walked in and collected evidence it probably couldn’t be used to prosecute them in court anyway so this is a bit like that. The judge might take the mitigating factors into consideration but the trial is still about them breaking into property illegally. The whole truth is primarily focused on the break in. Also this is pure speculation and I’m talking out of my ass, so would need someone who actually knows something to varify
California law is supposed to allow a necessity defense, the fact is they knew the farms were abusing animals (they had undercover people find employment with them and see first hand, which is legal and not trespassing) and they found the same abuse on the day.
You’re definitely allowed to break into a car to rescue a baby. You might also be allowed to break into a hot car to save a dog, in which case you should also be allowed to break into a poultry farm to save abused animals.
They didn’t deny they broke in, but said there was good reason. The judge refused to allow the reason to be heard, and furthermore refused to file briefs from legal experts. What’s more, the prosecutors declined to proceed with the various theft charges, instead opting for a misdemeanor trespassing charge and suping that up with a felony conspiracy charge. Making a felony out of a misdemeanor and not allowing the defense to be heard points to a coordinated attempt targeted solely at the leader of this campaign group.
Sorry, but that’s not how the law works - it doesn’t matter how morally justified a crime might be.
In California, where this happened, it actually does. Did you read the whole article?
DxE had obtained a legal opinion from Hadar Aviram, a professor at UC College of Law, San Francisco, saying that the activists had a valid defense for their actions because California law allows defendants to argue that they were providing aid to suffering animals out of necessity.
Furthermore, motivation is taken into consideration in many other cases across the US. For example, it is acceptable to break into someone’s car to save a baby locked inside. It may even be acceptable to break into a car to save a dog. In which case, it should be acceptable to break into a poultry farm to save abused animals.
The judge here refused to even allow this defense to be considered. She also refused to allow an amicus brief from another legal expert. This was all apparently part of a coordinated plan to slip through an overall unjust conviction and put the leader of this campaign group in jail - the local county is heavily in bed with these farms.
So I stand by my assertion, she is a bitch, and furthermore I think she is grossly unprofessional and should be disrobed.
Actually … it is. When a jury decides it’s sufficiently morally justified as to not be considered criminal, it’s called “Jury Nullification”
Seems like the next option is to arrange for mass arrests in a very public direct action. Massively overflow the jail in that judge’s district with animal rights activists until they’re forced to dismiss the cases.
direct action with the goal of filling jails has a long and very successful history, going back AT LEAST to the IWW Free Speech Fights. It also saw widespread success during the fight for Civil Rights.
This has been true for a long time. Upton Sinclair, writing over 100 years ago about improving working conditions (for humans) ended up missing the mark and the end result was food quality regulations. Now, folks are trying to expose animal cruelty but end up getting stronger protections for corporations 🤡 we just can’t seem to care about living things 🙁
Seems like it wasn’t for “exposing animal cruelty” so much as it was for, y’know, trespassing, breaking and entering, theft, etc.
For the sake of argument… if I hear you beating your dog, should I break down the door to stop it?
Yes, I could call 911, but by the time they arrive the sounds would stop and they’d have no probable cause. I could go in and steal the dog or even just record a video right now. What is the ethical thing to do?
If only there was a device that can fit in your pocket that could record such things as well as allow you to call the cops
If only the OP was allowed to present those recording and videos taken through their magical pocket device in court.
Not really an apples to apples comparison (unfortunately). Cows have fewer rights than dogs.
You would be within your rights to do something about the dog scenario, and the law would support you. Cows, on the other hand, are seen as products or machines, so “doing the ethical thing” would be looked at as if you were trying to steal someone’s car.
I agree that it’s not right, but that’s why these activists are arrested, instead of the animal owners.
Just like those criminals who knew it is against the law to sit in the front of the bus, or those who used whites only bathrooms? They did not fight for freedom but break the law?
Did you just compare black people fighting for civil rights and equality with animal freedom?
I suspect you were just point out that civil disobedience is a valid protest tactic, but I would recommend just saying that next time. Comparing people fighting for equality with animals fighting for freedom is … Not great. At worst, it comes across as racist. At best, tone deaf.
I guess you are a speciesist to get so but hurt about a comparison, you know there is a difference to equation and comparing? How is it tone deaf in a thread about those who fight for those with no voice to say that it is a just cause, just like that I compared it to? Stop supporting animal abuse while acting upset about the logical comparison.
