Category: Law

United Egg Producers are sued for false advertising

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

TAKOMA PARK, Maryland–Compass-ion Over Killing on February
15, 2005 sued Giant Food Inc. of Landover, Maryland, Lehman’s Egg
Service Inc. of Greencastle, Pennsylvania, and Brookville
Supermarket of Washington, D.C., alleging that their use of an
“Animal Care Certified” logo introduced in 2002 by United Egg
Producers is false advertising.
Under the United Egg Producers guidelines, Compassion Over
Killing points out, farmers may “Confine birds in cages so small
they can’t even spread their wings, slice off parts of their beaks
without painkiller, and starve them [to induce a new egg-laying
cycle by so-called ‘forced molt’] to the point where they have lost
up to 30 percent of their body weight.”
United Egg Producers spokesperson Mitch Head told Gretchen
Parker of Associated Press that about 80% of all U.S. egg farmers
meet the standards.
The Better Business Bureau National Advertising Review Board
in May 2004 upheld a November 2003 ruling by a lower panel that the
“Animal Care Certified” logo is misleading and should either be
dropped or be significantly altered. In August 2004 the BBB asked
the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate the alleged
deceptive labeling.

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Human/animal abuse link cases

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

Tequilla Fields, 34, and Lachan Russell, 29, were on
February 15, 2005 jailed without bond in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
facing charges of criminal homicide, arson, and reckless
endangerment for setting a dog on fire at about 2:15 a.m. on July 11,
1990. Tied to their house, the dog ran onto the porch, igniting
the house and killing Fields’ children, Montelle Thornhill, 2, and
Charita Thornhill, 3. Wrote Joe Mandak of Associated Press, “The
children’s great-grandmother, who has since died, doused the dog
with water, police said. The dog, Fay Lou, then ran inside the
house and was found dead under Montelle’s bed. Their uncle, Andre
Robinson, then 15, tried to save the children but couldn’t find
them in the thick smoke. He jumped from a third-floor window to save
himself, police said.” Police commander Maurita Bryant said the
case was cracked by re-interviewing about 20 witnesses, after which
Fields and Russell each gave statements blaming the other.

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USDA closes C.C. Baird

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

ST. LOUIS–C.C. and Patsy Baird, of Williford, Arkansas,
longtime suppliers of random-source dogs and cats to laboratories,
have paid a record penalty of $262,700 to the USDA for breaking
“practically every regulation and standard applicable to dogs and
cats,” USDA attorney Colleen Carroll told Todd Frankel of the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch on February 1, 2005, three days after the
settlement was finalized.
The Bairds’ daughters Jeannette and Patricia reportedly also
worked in the business.
Wrote Frankel, “The agreement between the USDA and the
Bairds calls for the fine, plus the permanent loss of the family’s
four animal breeding and dealer licenses and the threat of an
additional $250,000 fine if they are caught handling animals in the
next five years. As part of the deal, the Bairds neither admitted
nor denied the allegations.”
Frankel said that about 90 dogs and 120 cats rescued from the
Baird kennels were up for adoption.
In August 2003 federal and state investigators turned over to
rescue groups about 125 dogs seized from the Bairds. Many were
believed to be lost or stolen pets.
Last Chance for Animals called the USDA action a victory,
after an eight-year campaign against the Bairds, “but Carroll said
her office’s investigation did not rely on the group’s work and she
never viewed the videos” that LCA sent her, Frankel wrote.

UARC wins civil rights settlement

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

Utah Animal Rights Coalition members Aaron Lee and Peter
Tucker in early February 2005 received from Salt Lake County $500
each, $500 for UARC, and $10,000 in legal fees and court costs, in
settlement of a lawsuit alleging that their civil rights were
violated when sheriff’s deputy Sherida Holgate told them on December
7 that they could not protest within a block of a public concert
hall. The settlement allowed UARC to amend the case to challenge an
ordinance requiring a permit and 30-day notice to demonstrate on
public property.

Court of Human Rights rules for “McLibel” duo

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

STRASBURG, France–The European Court of
Human Rights on February 14, 2005 ruled that
British vegetarian activists David Morris, 50,
and Helen Steel, 39, were improperly denied
government legal aid and were convicted of libel
under an unjust law in the “McLibel” trial.
The seven-judge European Court panel
dismissed the 1997 “guilty” verdict, held that
the verdict violated Articles 6 and 10 of the
European Human Rights Convention, and awarded
Morris and Steel damages of $25,934 and $19,451,
respectively.
As members of a defunct organization
called London Greenpeace, Morris and Steel in
1986 distributed flyers, which they did not
author, alleging that McDonald’s Restaurants
sell unhealthy food, produced by means which
cause animal suffering and contribute to
starvation and deforestation in economically
disadvantaged parts of the world.

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Law enforcement

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, on January
18 reassigned four deputies and four civilian investigators to handle
animal abuse cases fulltime, and authorized the county Animal
Cruelty Prevent-ion Unit to immediately arrest and jail suspects.
Arpaio put former Phoenix mayor Thelda Williams in charge of the
unit. Arpaio also disbanded the Maricopa County SWAT team, in favor
of a part-time SWAT unit, and told critics that prosecuting animal
abuse brings better crime prevention for the money than having a SWAT
team.
Arpaio’s web site describes a no-kill animal shelter he
opened in 1999 in a former jail, to house animals seized from
suspects in cruelty cases. The shelter “also houses the pets of
individuals who check into domestic violence shelters that do not
accept pets,” the site says. “Detention officer staff and sentenced
female inmates care for the animals. The shelter is air-conditioned.
Some critics have said that it is inhumane to put dogs and cats in
air-conditioned quarters when inmates don’t have air-conditioning. A
good answer came from one of the inmates assigned to care for the
dogs. When asked if she was resentful about not having
air-conditioning, she gestured to some of the dogs and said, “They
didn’t do anything wrong, I did.”

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Bill introduced to halt wild horse slaughter; horse lovers rally

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2005:

WASHINGTON D.C., RENO– U.S. Representatives Nick J. Rahall
(D-West Virginia) and Ed Whitfield (R-Kentucky) on January 25
introduced a bill to restore to wild equines the full protection
extended by the 1971 Wild & Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Protection Act.
The Rahall/Whitfield bill, HR-297, would repeal a stealth
rider attached by Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana), to the
Consolidated Appropriations Act passed by Congress on November 18,
2004.
“If allowed to stand, the Burns provision will lead to the
slaughter of thousands of wild horses for human consumption abroad,”
summarized American Horse Defense Fund attorney Trina Bellak.
An impromptu demonstration of the symbolic significance of
wild horses to the American public came on January 21 at Damante
Ranch High School in Nevada.
Fearing that the Nevada Department of Agriculture was
rounding up mustangs to sell to slaughter, 30 to 40 students left
their classes, marched to the temporary corral in two separate
groups, so that if one group was intercepted the other might get
through, and released about a dozen horses who had already been
captured with hay as bait.

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Video law holds up in first test against animal fighter

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2005:

PITTSBURGH–Reaching a unanimous verdict in only 45 minutes,
a federal jury on January 13, 2005 convicted video distributor
Robert Stevens of three counts of selling depictions of illegal
cruelty to animals across state lines.
The case was the first court test of 1999 legislation
introduced by Representative Elton Gallegly (R-California).
U.S. Senior District Judge Alan N. Bloch rejected federal
public defender Michael Novara’s contentions that the law violated
Stevens’ First Amendment right to freedom of expression, and that it
was misapplied because the law was introduced to address “wanton
cruelty to animals designed to appeal to a prurient interest in sex.”
The law prohibits the interstate distribution of videos or
films depicting illegal cruelty to animals, if they are without
“serious religious, political, scientific, educational,
journalistic, historical, or art value.”
Stevens, 64, of Pittsville, Virginia, in 2003 sold two
videotapes of dogfights and one video of a “hog/dog rodeo” to
investigators for the Pennsylvania State Police and USDA Office of
the Inspector General. Stevens advertised the videos for sale in the
Sporting Dog Journal, whose publisher James Fricchione, 34, was
convicted in March 2004 of six felonies and five misdemeanors for
allegedly promoting dogfights.

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Felony Sentencing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2004:

Circuit Judge Wyatt Saunders of Charleston County, South
Carolina, on November 23, 2004 sentenced David Ray Tant, 57, to
serve 40 years in prison, after Tant pleaded guilty to 41 counts of
dogfighting and assault and battery. Tant could get 10 years off if
he pays the estimated $150,000 cost of impounding 49 pit bull
terriers seized in the case, pays court costs, and covers the
medical care of a surveyor who in April 2004 tripped over a
booby-trap near Tant’s premises and was hit by a shotgun blast. The
dogs, held since April 2004 at the John Ancrum SPCA, were killed on
November 24. Their presence had reportedly obliged the SPCA to kill
many other impounded dogs, due to lack of kennel space. Prosecutor
Jennifer Evans told Sammy Fretwell of Associated Press that Tant must
serve most of 30 years in prison before winning parole, but
Charleston Post & Courier staff reporter Herb Frazier wrote that
“Tant could be eligible for release in about eight years.”

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