DOUBLE EXPOSURE: Trial begins amid controversy for animal rights activists who rescued two sick piglets
The two defendants said they want to raise awareness about animal cruelty at factory farms and potentially set new precedent if a jury determined that they were justified in taking the piglets because they feared for the animals’ lives.
DAVID DeMILLE: Five years after they allegedly snuck into a Utah pig farm and recorded video of themselves smuggling two piglets away from what they said were inhumane living conditions, two animal rights activists are set to face a jury trial in St. George this week despite protests about a mistake made during Monday’s jury selection process.
Wayne Hsiung and Paul Darwin Picklesimer, the two remaining defendants facing charges from the 2017 incident, could face more than 10 years in prison on charges of felony burglary and theft. They were part of a group of five people who reportedly recorded a series of disturbing videos at Circle Four Farms in Milford, Utah, where owner Smithfield Foods was operating one of the country’s largest pig farms.
The other three people charged in the case struck plea deals earlier, but Hsiung and Picklesimer pursued their cases, saying they hoped they could raise awareness about animal cruelty at factory farms and potentially set new precedent if a jury determined that they were justified in taking the piglets because they feared for the animals’ lives.
Jury selection in the trial was set to start Monday morning at the 5th District Courthouse in St. George, but there was controversy even before the trial could begin after defense lawyers protested they had not received information on prospective jurors and asked for a mistrial.
Hsiung, who is representing himself, challenged the start on due process grounds, saying that while prosecutors had received the full names of prospective jurors, he had not. Hsiung said none of the juror questionnaires he’d received included last names, making it impossible for him to conduct research and investigate potential sources of bias…
Judge Jeffrey C. Wilcox deliberated in private with Hsiung and the other attorneys for about two hours before emerging to say that the trial would resume, despite what he admitted was his “mistake” in not ensuring that both sides had equal information entering the trial… Wilcox said he would move on with the case regardless, saying a delay would likely mean calling a new set of potential jurors and would punt the case to at least January…
However, Wilcox said that if the defense later found issues of bias with jurors who were chosen, he could declare a mistrial. Jury selection continued for most of the rest of the day, with both sides asking to strike a number of prospective jurors out of a total juror pool of 137. The trial, should it move forward as scheduled, is slated to start on Tuesday…
Hsiung, a California-based lawyer, is a founding member of the Direct Action Everywhere, also known as DxE, an animal rights advocacy group that says it rescues animals kept in poor conditions and exposes the unethical treatment of animals behind the meat trade and other industries…
In a virtual-reality video taken from Circle Four Farms and shared online by DxE, pigs are shown cooped up in small metal pens, with some clips showing sows gnawing on the bars in an effort to get out. One clip shows piglets climbing over each other to reach a sow’s teats, with several dead siblings lying on the ground near them.
Hsiung narrates the video, saying he sees hundreds of sows kept in just one warehouse and that across the entirety of the farm there are 35,000 pigs kept in similar conditions… Representatives for Smithfield Foods have called the videos deceptive… saying the videos were evidence of “trespassing onto company property, breaking into a barn, stealing animals and violating Smithfield’s strict biosecurity policy to prevent the spread of disease onto our farms”. SOURCE…
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