Idaho Statesmen Details Groups Supporting Challenge to Idaho Ag Gag Law

The Idaho Statesmen today ran an article detailing the lineup of organization and individuals who are supporting the challenge the Idaho's Ag Gag law. My office, together with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Public Justice, the ACLU of Idaho, and others represent the plaintiffs in their challenge to the statute.

The Idaho statute made it a crime for undercover investigators to obtain employment of factory farms or secretly record instances of animal cruelty or abuse. In 2015, the Idaho district court struck the law down. The state has appealed that ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, where argument is scheduled for May 12, 2017.

Today's article lists the impressive array of organizations and individuals who have submitted amicus curiae briefs in support of the challengers to the law, including Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, United Farm Workers, Association of American Publishers, Yale Law School's Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression, University of California-Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, New York University Professors Brooke Kroeger and Ted Conover, the Government Accountability Project, and Food & Water Watch. Read the article here.

Los Angeles Slaughterhouse Sues Animal Rights Activists Over Peaceful Sidewalk Vigils

Manning Beef, the last cow slaughterhouse remaining in Los Angeles, has sued peaceful activists who hold vigils on the sidewalk outside of the facility for trespass. Today, my office, along with the Animal Legal Defense Fund and Ryan Gordon of Advancing Law for Animals, are fighting back to maintain the rights of activists to speak out.

Starting in January of 2017, animal rights activists operating under the name Los Angeles Cow Save began holding vigils outside of Manning Beef for the cows who are slaughtered there. The activists hold signs, light small candles, and, when transport trucks arrive carrying cows, the activists photographs and videotape the cows' conditions and provide them water through the trucks' ventilation holes.

Manning Beef has twice summoned L.A. County Sheriffs and demanded the sheriffs arrest the activists, insisting that the facility owns the sidewalk and road and that the activists are trespassing by holding vigils on the sidewalk of a public road. Both times the sheriffs refused and allowed the vigils to continue without so much as a warning to the activists.

The activists even contacted the city about Manning Beef's claim and discovered that the facility shares ownership in the road with the city, but the deed reflects an easement for a public road. In addition, hundreds of cars pass over the road every hour, the road has bike lanes, and the road's signage is indistinguishable from every other road in the city. Other businesses operate on the road and a city bus line even runs over it. Nothing indicates any quasi-private ownership or any restriction on public access.

The City Attorney of Pico Rivera informed the activists that the city treats the road as public and they were within their rights to hold their vigils there.

Unable to convince law enforcement to stop the demonstrations, Manning Beef filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles Cow Save, seeking more than $25,000 in damages from the activists as well as a restraining order prohibiting them from holding vigils in the future.

Today, my office filed a motion to strike Manning Beef's lawsuit under the California “anti-SLAPP” (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) statute. The purpose of this statute is to allow activists to dismiss lawsuits that seek punish them for exercising their free speech rights. The motion argues that the lawsuit is meritless because Los Angeles Cow Save’s vigils are a protected form of free speech and are not conducted on private property, despite Manning Beef’s claims. A hearing on the motion is set for May 3, 2017.

To find out more about Los Angeles Cow Save and attend a future vigil, visit their Facebook page.

Constitutional Challenge To Mississippi's "Unnatural Intercourse" Law

Today my office filed a constitutional challenge to Mississippi's "Unnatural Intercourse" statue, Mississippi Code Annotated § 97-29-59, which makes it a crime to engage in oral or anal sex, and the state's insistence people with "Unnatural Intercourse" convictions register as sex offenders in the state. 

In 2003, in the landmark case Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), the United States Supreme Court struck down Texas’s sodomy prohibition on due process grounds because the law furthered no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual. In striking down the Texas law, the Court resoundingly declared that any criminal statute whose only element is the commission of oral or anal sex is unconstitutional and was not limited to Texas or to laws singling out same-sex couples. Lawrence specifically overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), a prior case upholding Georgia's anti-sodomy law, and thus Lawrence necessarily concluded that Georgia’s law was also unconstitutional. 

Fast forward to 2016. Despite the Supreme Court more than a dozen years ago stating that oral and anal sex cannot be the basis of criminal charges, Mississippi continues to require people conviction of such charges to register as sex offenders for at least twenty five years. 

Many states still have these unenforceable anti-sodomy laws on the books, but no one can bring a challenge to strike them down because the states are not enforcing them. Except Mississippi. This case is a rare example of a state still trying to criminalize oral and anal sex despite the Supreme Court's clear command. But it also presents the rare opportunity to challenge one of these laws head on with plaintiffs who are directly affected by it.

I'm excited to work on this case with the wonderful attorneys at the Center for Constitutional Rights (where I worked for five years) and Rob mcDuff and Jake Howard of the esteemed McDuff & Byrd in Jackson, Mississippi.