The bill aims to amend state statutes to prevent defendants accused of theft from using the defense they removed livestock because the animals were sick, injured or were a liability to the owner.
The bill sponsor says a jury got the verdict wrong when it found two activists not guilty when they took two sick pigs from a farm.
Hsiung admitted entering the farm with cameraman Picklesimer, who was filming to document abuses they might find with the pigs. He further admitted to taking the two piglets but argued it wasn’t theft because the livestock were too sickly to represent anything of value to their corporate owner. Lynn Carlson, a St. George structural engineer who was a juror at the trial, argues otherwise. He calls the bill an affront to the jurors who considered all the evidence at the trial and ruled appropriately in the defendants’ favor.
“Juries should be well-informed and have all relevant facts presented to them for evaluation. Defendants should have the right to present reasonable defenses to their alleged crimes,” he wrote. “This bill is a reckless and impulsive reaction by politicians who are clearly re-writing the law to appease Smithfield and the powerful agriculture lobby in Utah.
Hsiung said the piglets, by the prosecution’s own estimate, were worth about $40 apiece, much less than the cost of treating the animals, assuming farm officials were inclined to do so. “It is a crime to enter a dwelling and to steal property. That’s a burglary,” he said. “It is a crime to take something that doesn’t belong to you. That’s theft.”
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