Posted October 21, 2013
Attorneys for the state of Utah filed a motion to
dismiss, arguing the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the lawsuit which
challenges the state’s “ag-gag” law, according to a Food Safety News article
available here.
Plaintiff, Amy Meyer, an animal rights activist, was
the first person charged under Utah’s “Agricultural Operation Interference”
law, Utah Code
Ann. § 7-76-112, which was adopted in 2012.
Meyer was arrested after taking pictures of a slaughterhouse in Draper,
Utah from public property.
Utah assistant attorneys general argue Meyer lacks
standing because the charges filed against her were dismissed without
prejudice. The assistant attorneys
general also argued that a challenge of the validity of a criminal statute that
is not being prosecuted requires that there be someone who is under a “real and
immediate threat of future prosecution” and that none of the plaintiffs meet
the “credible threat” test.
The lawsuit was filed on July 22, 2013, with plaintiffs
also including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Animal
Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), journalists and college professors challenging the
Utah law on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. The complaint is available here.
The law makes leaving a recording device to record
sound or images on the property of private livestock or poultry operations a
class A misdemeanor. It also prohibits
trespassing on those properties to record sound or images or seeking employment
with the intent of recording a class B misdemeanor.
PETA attorney Jeffery S. Kerr said, “Utah should pass a
law requiring publicly accessible webcams in slaughterhouses and on farms to
catch abusers, not protect them…The state’s motion, like the ag gag law itself,
is designed to shield this industry from scrutiny,” according to a Deseret News
article available here.
Daniel Widdison, assistant attorney general, wrote, “In
essence, the law punishes trespass and fraud, and protects the right of private
property owners to control who has access to their property and what they do
while on that property." The motion to dismiss is available here.
For more information on this case, a recent post from
this blog is available here. For information on animal welfare, please
visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
