Vanguard News Desk Editor
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – A California lawyer convicted last year of a felony for participating in two factory farm demonstrations in Sonoma County has announced he is appealing the conviction in the 1st District Court of Appeal here, charging the Superior Court erred, violating his constitutional rights.
The Animal Activist Legal Defense Project (AALDP) said in a statement over the weekend it has filed the appeal of the criminal conviction of Wayne Hsiung, a lawyer and “prominent animal rights activist.”
Hsiung’s prosecution, according to the statement, “stemmed from his attendance at two protests at Sonoma County factory farms: Sunrise Farms, a ‘certified humane’ supplier to Whole Foods and Amazon, and Reichardt Duck Farm, California’s largest duck farm. During the two protests, activists rescued 37 chickens and 32 ducks, getting them veterinary care and rehoming them to sanctuaries.”
Hsiung was charged with two counts of misdemeanor trespass and felony conspiracy to trespass, and convicted of both misdemeanors and one felony after an eight-week trial and six days of jury deliberation. Hsiung was given a 90-day jail term and two years of supervised probation.
Supporters of Hsiung said Sunrise and Reichardt market themselves as “humane,” but “years of undercover investigations have shown systemic violations of animal cruelty laws, including ducks who are diseased, starving, and scalded alive, and chickens who are immobile, severely injured, or even dead and decomposing.”
According to AALDP, Hsiung admits he did participate in the protests, and “spoke with law enforcement at the scene about the legal rights of protesters and of those who rescued animals during the events.”
However, the AALDP, in its brief, detailed “numerous constitutional errors during the trial, including First Amendment violations, unlawful bias against Mr. Hsiung, and arbitrary limits on what evidence and which defenses Hsiung was permitted to present.”
“If Hsiung had entered private property to rescue a dog from a swimming pool, there would be no question that his conduct was lawful because he prevented the dog from drowning,” said Justin Marceau, Director of AALDP.
Marceau added, “But, because he led a protest where animals were rescued from a factory farm, Mr. Hsiung was instead prosecuted on felonies and jailed. This exceptionalism, in which inflicting excruciating pain and suffering on animals is permitted simply because it occurs in agriculture, must end.”
Hsiung was prohibited, said his counsel, “from mounting a necessity defense, arguing that his actions were legal because they prevented a ‘significant evil,’ because the court ruled that animals are categorically excluded from such a defense.”
AALDP, in the defense statement, cited the example of rescuing a dog from a swimming pool, but claims there are a “range of cases in which courts have made clear that the harm prevented by those invoking a necessity defense is not limited to serious harm to human beings.”
“Courts have even permitted a necessity defense where the harm prevented was sleep deprivation and, in another instance, suggested that harm to ‘more valuable property’ would qualify, AALDP added, noting “denying such a defense in Hsiung’s case, where the harm prevented was animal cruelty—which is itself illegal–is arbitrary.”
Hsiung’s appeal also complains the trial court “severely restricted the evidence Hsiung was allowed to present, to the extent that he was unable to rebut claims by the factory farm owners that animals are treated well in their facilities.
“Though Hsiung had both photos and video that directly contradicted these claims—including evidence collected during, the night before, or shortly after the protest—he was prohibited from entering almost all of these into evidence,” insisting the “court’s gag on cruelty evidence prevented Hsiung from explaining his intent, a crucial element of the criminal charges against him.
AALDP also claims “Hsiung was also precluded from presenting all but small portions of legal opinions, written by a criminal law professor and a former federal prosecutor, about laws that allow civilians to provide aid to, and even to rescue, animals in distress, such as California’s so-called ‘hot car’ law, in order to explain to the jury why he believed his conduct was necessary and lawful.”
“I attended these protests, and expressed support for the animal rescuers, because I have seen firsthand how animals inside these factory farms are suffering and dying. The jury was entitled to hear why I was there, and why some people were motivated to save birds,” said Hsiung.
He added, “The court’s gag on discussing what I saw inside those facilities fits squarely within the animal agriculture playbook of hiding what really happens to animals raised for food.”
Appeal lawyers at AALDP charged serious First Amendment issues in the case because lawyer Hsiung was convicted in part for “aiding and abetting” civil disobedience because of speeches he gave during the demonstration which prosecutors said “promoted” civil disobedience.
AALDP, though, claims in its pleading this “runs afoul of well-established free speech law, which prohibits restricting or punishing advocacy of unlawful activity that falls short of imminent incitement…allowing Hsiung’s conviction to stand on this basis creates a dangerous precedent for modern protest.”
Hsiung’s filing also charges the trial was “plagued with stunning prosecutorial bias against Mr. Hsiung and defense witnesses,” noting the prosecution interrogated, expressed hostility towards, and even openly mocked Mr. Hsiung and other defense witnesses’ beliefs, diet, dress, and other animal rights-related lifestyle choices.”
AALDP said “prosecutors asked a UC San Francisco criminal law professor whether she was raising her child as a vegan and whether a legal opinion she drafted regarding necessity defenses and animal rescue was her ‘vegan opinion’…a court would clearly not tolerate such a line of questioning were prosecutors to ask if a witness was raising their child on a kosher diet or whether their legal opinion was ‘a Muslim opinion.’”
