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In October 2022, a Utah jury ruled in favor of the Right to Rescue, acquitting me and my co-defendant Paul Picklesimer after we were prosecuted for removing two starving piglets from the largest factory farm in the nation. In making its ruling, the jury was following not just their conscience, but the growing trend across the nation to defend those who give aid to sick and dying animals. More than fourteen states have recently passed [ [link removed] ] Right to Rescue bills of some form, typically involving animals left in a hot car; this includes conservative bastions such as Tennessee and Louisiana. Many other states have pre-existing Good Samaritan provisions, such as California’s (recently-amended) Penal Code Section 597e, which gives citizens the right to aid animals who lack access to food and author. As turkey farmer Rick Pitman put it at trial, “There is a difference between stealing and helping someone who’s suffering.”
But only one state has done the opposite, and attempted to undermine the Right to Rescue: Utah. And it is happening in direct response to the Smithfield verdict, and on behalf of one of the richest men in the world: the billionaire owner of Smithfield’s parent company, Wan Long.
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In a shocking and secretive legislative maneuver that became public within the last 24 hours, two Utah legislators introduced House Bill 114 (HB114), titled Theft Defense Amendments [ [link removed] ], in an effort to eliminate legal protections for those who aid dying animals. The legislators, who have cumulatively taken campaign contributions in the five figures [ [link removed] ] from food and agricultural interests, say that their aim is to to ensure that “it is not a defense to theft of livestock or a domestic animal that the livestock or domestic animal is sick, injured, or a liability to the owner.”
If HB114 succeeds, it will not affect Paul and I; there is no double jeopardy in criminal cases. But it will undermine a key protection provided to Utah citizens, and to its animals, and one that is overwhelmingly supported by the public. And it will do so on behalf of a foreign multinational corporation that has no interest in protecting the people of Utah, or its animals.
To make this disturbing contrast more clear, let’s consider two legal decisions made recently in Utah on the Right to Rescue.
The first unfolded at my trial. I told the jurors in that case that their choice would have consequences far beyond our courtroom. Make the right choice, I explained, and a piglet out there will not starve to death on the floor of a factory farm. The jury came through with flying colors, and I am just this week returning from a trial summit in Denver where I met the jurors in person for the first time. They gave me a renewed belief in the goodness and integrity of ordinary people. The jury made a choice in defense of compassion.
The second decision on the Right to Rescue is now unfolding in the Utah legislature. But unlike the jurors, the legislature is not grounding its decision in compassion or ethics or even common sense. It is making the wrong choice, and it is doing so on behalf of a billionaire in China, Wan Long [ [link removed] ]. The Utah legislature is planning to make it a crime to give aid to a sick or injured animal. And its actions are simply another demonstration of why so many have lost all trust in government. It is a choice in defense of corporate profits.
Why is this choice happening? The first and most obvious answer is campaign contributions and influence. Smithfield and its corporate parent, WH Group, have spent many millions of dollars [ [link removed] ]in recent years to buy influence in government. As Pulitzer Prize winner Glenn Greenwald put it [ [link removed] ], in the context of the Smithfield trial, government officials in Utah have “acted with improper motives because of their own extensive ties to that industry.”
The second reason is that the legislators themselves likely see our fight against animal abuse as an attack on their way of life. The chief sponsor, Carl Albrecht, is a hunter whose Instagram account features a photo of him standing over one of his animal trophies. It seems plausible that someone from this background might react negatively to the Smithfield verdict.
The most important reason for the legislature’s bad choice, though, is something that I learned from the recent trial summit: (strategic) ignorance. You see, it’s not just that the legislature’s decision is corrupt or biased. It’s that the corruption and bias leads to a distorted and limited view of the world, one in which key facts are completely ignored, e.g., that 100,000+ piglets starve to death every year at a single factory farm in Utah. This indefensible statistic, as awful as it is, can only really be understood when we look through the eyes of a single animal, such as Lily. But when we do so, we are moved to action. The jurors in Utah were not activists, but seeing and hearing Lily’s story moved them to take one of the most powerful “activist” actions in animal rights history.
The problem is that legislators like Albrecht have no incentive to look at the world through Lily’s eyes. Virtually all of the jurors in the Smithfield case indicated that, before they were presented with evidence, they were sure they would convict. The story was so simple. How could it possibly be ok to steal someone else’s property? But when they met Lily (virtually), and heard our stories, that simple story became more complicated. By the end, all the jurors did not just sympathize with our legal argument. They sympathized with the animals, too. Indeed, when we brought them to meet Lily and Lizzie this past weekend, many were near tears. Because those two little piglets, who fought back from the brink of death, represented so much more than animal rights. They represented a world of hope, and kindness, and love.
But the legislators in Utah don’t understand this because they, unlike the Smithfield jurors, have not taken the time to understand the true story. The false and simple story — that the Right to Rescue is just about property and theft — has not been complicated for them, yet. And their reaction to it represents everything wrong with the world: corruption, and greed, and violence.
I am just as confident, however, that if we are able to tell the true story to the legislators, we can win most of them over.
But to do that, we need your help. So here’s what you can do:
Reach out to each of the members of the Utah Ag Committee [ [link removed] ], by phone and email, and politely let them know that you oppose the criminalization of animal rescue.
Share this blog and other content about Utah’s effort to kill the Right to Rescue, and tag the governor of Utah, Spencer Cox.
Stay tuned for more.
The jurors faced a choice. The legislature will face a choice. And now you do, too. If you help us on this, I believe we can fight off this rearguard bill, and vindicate the goodness of the jurors in Utah. (Even if we lose the fight, moreover, if we can raise enough attention, Smithfield will regret their attempt to criminalize animal care, much as they probably regret their attempt to criminalize freedom of speech.)
So please, take action . I am going to be calling and emailing Utah legislators first thing in the morning myself. (Check out my morning livestream if you want tips on what to say.) I hope you’ll join me. There is a piglet out there who may be saved, starving, from the floor of a factory farm, if you make the right choice.
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