PETA Trial (Day 10): Slow-Speed Chase in a Ford Bronco

PETA Trial, Day 10
Slow-Speed Chase in a Ford Bronco

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February 2, 2007 | The final gasps of the PETA-Kills-Animal trial, and the verdicts, made us think of one thing: O.J. Simpson. Lawyers concoct a conspiracy theory. Legal stunts manufacture reasonable doubt. Closing arguments demonize everybody but the defendants. A jury is confused. Criminals walk free.

On Friday morning (February 2), before closing arguments began, lawyers on both sides wrapped up their arguments about the all-important jury instructions. D.A. Valerie Asbell asked the judge to preclude defense lawyers from arguing that PETA employees Adria Hinkle (O.J. #1) and Andrew Cook (O.J. #2) were justified in anything they did if they relied on the advice of PETA General Counsel Jeff Kerr. Kerr's apparently inept performance aside, Judge Cy Grant asked incredulously, "how is that a defense?" We were wondering the same thing.

Actually, the most enlightening part of the argument over jury instructions came late on Thursday, as PETA lawyer Blair "Johnny Cochran" Brown essentially argued -- and we're not making this up -- that the animals his clients killed have no value. Brown was trying to persuade Judge Grant to dismiss the remaining felony charges of Obtaining Property By False Pretenses against O.J. #1, because the law covers people who deceive in order to take possession of "money, goods, property, services. or other thing of value." And Blair claimed that dogs and cats are without value.

Think about that. This is PETA, which believes lab rats are so valuable that we have to slow down AIDS and cancer research. PETA, which holds the value of chickens to be so high that its philosophy forbids eating them, or their eggs. PETA, whose president (according to a New Yorker profile) has had a seeing-eye dog taken away from at least one blind man. It's forced servitude of an animal with "rights," you know.

Now, when it's convenient, dogs and cats have no value. The mind boggles.

Defense Closing Arguments

Defense lead-off hitter Mark Edwards admitted up front that his client (O.J. #2) and his partner in crime "did kill the animals intentionally. This was not an accident." Then Edwards went on to claim that it was justified -- because pet overpopulation would present an untenable public-health problem if someone weren't running willy-nilly across North Carolina killing shelter dogs.

Which, of course, says nothing about the three cats in Dr. Proctor's office. What threat, exactly, did they pose to public health?

Edwards' argument reminded us of the very first day of jury selection, when defense lawyers went out of their way to weed out all the admitted hunters. Now we know why. PETA has always mocked the notion of hunters as conservationists. When outdoor sportsmen insist that they're protecting the public by responsibly managing the population of deer, bears, or whatever, PETA thumbs its nose. It always has.

Now the same argument is Defense Exhibit A. Hunters in the jury box would likely have caught the irony and guffawed at PETA's hubris.

Then, in a foot-stomping, rafter-vibrating tantrum, Edwards blamed the police -- practically screaming that the O.J.s were "pawns between law enforcement and PETA. if you want to indict PETA, and bring PETA in here, indict PETA! But leave them alone!"

Indict PETA? Now there's an idea. Perhaps when the dust settles, the federal government will take the baton and run with it. We hear there's still a War on Drugs, and PETA has admittedly been transporting controlled substances across state lines without a license for years.

Blair Brown was next. He made one big error in his closing. But given the result, we may have been the only ones to catch it. PETA, he reminded the jury, had paid Dr. Proctor's fees for euthanizing hundreds of animals in Hertford County. Therefore, he said, Proctor knew that PETA euthanized large quantities of animals.

Not really. We've spoken to Dr. Proctor. All he knew was the PETA paid qualified, licensed veterinarians to euthanize some animals. He had no idea that the group's employees did it themselves. How could he?

Brown lost momentum shortly after beginning his speech, as a juror's cell phone rang. Ten times. But it didn't stop him from introducing his two big themes. Both were offensive as all get-out.

(1). "Documents don't lie. Some witnesses do."

(2). "Don't believe the hospital 'crew'."

Brown implied time and time again that the testifying employees of the Ahoskie Animal Hospital -- Dr. Pat Proctor, Reesie Ray, Susan Dunlow, Tonya Northcutt, and Ashton Sumner -- were all lying through their teeth. And in labeling them a "crew" (and later, a "gang"), he suggested that they somehow conspired against the O.J.s and told lie after lie to make it stick.

Sound familiar? Strike "animal hospital." Insert "police force." It's O.J. Simpson all over again.

Midway through his stem-winder, Brown stumbled over another irony by telling the jury that although O.J. #1 killed "Happy" (the dog that Bertie County Animal Control Officer Barry Anderson gave her for adoption), "It was PETA's property, and she had the absolute legal authority to put the dog down."

Let's play with this a bit.

"Hey PETA -- Those chickens are our property, and we have the absolute legal authority to marinade them in 11 herbs and spices."

"Hey PETA -- Those elephants are our property, and we have the absolute legal authority to let them entertain children."

"Hey PETA -- Those purpose-bred rats are our property, and if we think they will help us search for a breast cancer cure, then we have the absolute legal authority to use them."

"Hey PETA -- This dairy cow is my property, and I have the absolute legal authority to milk it. That's what a dairy cow is for."

"Hey PETA -- That small-mouth bass I just caught is my property, and if I want to fillet it and cook it over a campfire, I have the absolute legal authority to do it."

Poof! PETA has no more raison d'etre. Its own lawyer has just articulated the worldview of Americans who place private property rights and individual liberty above pressure groups like PETA. Animals are property. Even, apparently, the ones we treat like members of the family.

After a morning recess, defense lawyer Jack Warmack trotted out a big red herring. Euthanasia, he said, is not inhumane when it's done according to established standards. Dr. Proctor euthanizes animals. So do other veterinarians. Is the state of North Carolina going to prosecute them for animal cruelty?

Memo to Warmack: One of the O.J.s may have been certified to kill puppies, but she's not a veterinarian. She wasn't even legally allowed to have the drugs she used. And if veterinarians euthanize your animal without telling you about it ahead of time, you can sue them for malpractice.

Warmack also dropped a big brick on the Virginia Code, the law establishing what PETA was supposed to do with all the animals its employees killed. "If it wasn't a piece of evidence," he said, "I would probably pick it up and throw it in the trash."

Nice. Throw the law in the trash. Very classy for an attorney. Hope he's not planning to be licensed in Virginia.

The State Gets the Final Word

Without a lunch break, Judge Grant let the D.A. launch into her summation just before 12:30pm. The jurors were visibly tired. It might have been a good idea to let them eat first.

Regardless, Asbell presented a smart closing. A tough-as-nails Delta Burke character with a twinkle in her eye, she led the jury where she wanted them to go. As we learned later, they weren't buying. But this was no talentless prosecutor. Asbell gave it her all.

"If someone comes to your house and takes property that belongs to you and tells you that they're going to do something with it -- let's say your dog, or your cat. and they leave your home, and they kill it, that's against the law. Always has been. Always will be in the State of the North Carolina.

"What are we doing here? We're here because the defendant, Ms. Hinkle, went to the Ahoskie Animal Hospital, and lied to get an animal, and then killed it. That's what we're here about.

"We're here because Mr. Cook and Ms. Hinkle came down here without a legal justification -- a legal justification, ladies and gentlemen -- to possess drugs, and kill animals after they tell folks they're going to find homes for them."

Amen, sister. Asbell reminded the jury that in order to decide that killing the animals was justified -- for any reason -- the O.J.s had to be acting lawfully. And by using illegal drugs, they clearly weren't.

"The instruction the judge is going to give you is that a justifiable excuse may be the lawful destruction of any animal for the purpose of protecting the public, other animals, property, or the public's health. Well, I underline lawful.

"We're talking about the drugs. The controlled substances. Now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, there's absolutely no evidence to rebut the fact that PETA, as an organization, did not have proper DEA certification to have those drugs in North Carolina, or administer them. That's a fact.

"There's absolutely no evidence that it was lawful to possess those drugs. And if it's not lawful to possess the drugs, then you can't use them."

At one point, Asbell made us think that jurors might let the O.J.s walk for killing the dogs, but not the cats.

"The cats at the vet -- Cook and Hinkle -- what purpose was that for? To protect the public? Other animals? Property? Or the public health? No. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And there's nobody who can march in here and tell you any different.

"These three cats, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, and we keep talking about the cats because they had no -- neither of them, Cook or Hinkle, had any justification for killing those cast. None. Legally, ethically, morally. None. So they're guilty of cruelty to animals for [killing] these cats."

Her smartest moment, what we thought just might "connect" with the jury, came halfway through her closing argument. Defense lawyers, she reminded us all, kept insisting that all of these animals (even the cats, incredibly) were already "slated to die." In other words, what difference did it make who killed them, and when?

Asnell's answer? If you want to follow the law, it makes all the difference in the world:

"They want to tell you, 'well, look, they were going to die anyway. They were going to die anyway.' ...

"Why don't we use this analogy: We have a person on Death Row who's slated to die on Friday. I decide I don't like him because of what he did, and I go up to the D.O.C. [Department of Corrections] on Wednesday. And I go in, and I sneak a gun in, and I say-I don't know-well, I'm going to kill him.

"So I get him on Wednesday inside the visitation room at the D.O.C. What happens then? Am I not responsible for killing him, because he was going to die Friday anyway? No. that's not the law."

Then, she took a well-deserved shot at PETA lawyer Jeff Kerr -- who could never remember just who (at any number of government agencies) might have given him the green-light to outfit his group's vans with dangerous drugs. Did he actually even make those phone calls? We'll never know.

"Brian Reise came into this courtroom. He's a DEA agent in North Carolina. But they want to argue to you that [PETA General Counsel] Jeff Kerr called the DEA in Washington, DC. And I guess that's better: Washington, DC.

"He calls into Washington, DC, and somebody -- who is that, by the way? You don't think, ladies and gentlemen, that a lawyer who works for PETA, a multimillion dollar corporation, would write down notes as to who they talk to when they were going to advise people in their staff that they can do something that could possibly get them jail time? Don't you think he would have written down a note?"

Asbell shot a few barbs in the direction of PETA's Daphna Nachminovitch, too. Why, she asked, did Nachminovitch fail to keep track of all the dead animal bodies coming back to PETA headquarters, but keep such meticulous records of the live animals the group picked up in North Carolina? Simple:

"That's because, ladies and gentlemen, they want to be able to justify when they go out and say 'Oh, we helped all these animals. We helped all these sick animals. They sure aren't out telling folks they're killing healthy ones. No! Because that doesn't go along with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals."

And what about the disturbing video PETA showed jurors of dogs being put to sleep in a gas chamber? It turns out it hadn't been in use since before O.J. #1 was hired at PETA:

"They want you to believe that you can base a crime committed in 2005 on something that happened in 2000. They want you to believe that Ms. Hinkle and Mr. Cook had a justifiable excuse for killing the animals because 'they're putting them in the gas chamber' or 'they're shooting them between the eyes.' The evidence is uncontradicted. That they don't do that anymore. And Lord knows, if anybody should know that, it's PETA."

The final bombshell to emerge in this trial came back, again, to Happy -- the terrier that O.J. #1 killed in Virginia after telling its owner (her friend, Animal Control Officer Barry Anderson) that the dog would have a chance at adoption.

Anderson, it turns out, never knew his dog was dead until he heard about it in court. Then he had to go home and tell his wife. Judging from the photos of Happy that O.J. #1 had sent, Mrs. Anderson had always assumed the dog lived in a brick house with a flower garden.

O.J. Beats the Rap

Okay, perhaps we've stretched this comparison a bit far. No defense lawyer ever looked at this jury and intoned: "You're a clueless twit, so you must acquit."

And O.J. Simpson evaded justice after allegedly killing people. There's a big difference. Then again, in PETA's world, animals are people. In order to keep everybody intellectually honest, shouldn't Hinkle have been charged with mass-murder? And Cook as an accessory? The result, as it turns out, would have been the same. Nobody would convict a puppy-killer of murder. But at least PETA would have been forced to live by its own ethics.

We're reminded of an obnoxious animal-rights bumper sticker that reads: "If you love animals called pets, why do you eat animals called dinner?" It's an awkward message, and the irony is of course lost on people with pet cows. But we suggest a new version:

If PETA employees kill animals called pets, why won't they let us grill animals called dinner?

We'll be taking orders soon.

While waiting for the jury to do its thing, we wondered why defense lawyers got to give three closing arguments to the prosecution's one. We could have understood two, since there were two defendants. But three? Nobody has been able to explain this to us. In football terms, the time-of-possession game on Friday was dominated by one side. It would have been a fairer fight with a chess clock.

After three-and-a-half hours, the jury returned "Not Guilty" verdicts on everything except the littering charges. But even those were high-level misdemeanors (not at all like a jaywalking ticket). Judge Grant sentenced them to a year's supervised probation, 50 hours of community service, and a suspended ten-day jail term. Plus a $1,000 fine (each). And they have to split $5,970 in restitution for the town's expenses in cleaning the crime scene, burying the animals, and storing the van.

Ah, yes. The van. PETA's not getting it back. The town of Ahoskie has confiscated it. But there is no joy in Mudville. We hear they have a whole fleet of mobile death chambers.

Parting Thoughts

At some point in the next week, we'll post a wrap-up essay in this space. It's tentatively titled "What We Learned at the PETA Trial."

And we note that PETA's annual "Animal Report" to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has, as of this writing, not been filed. It was due on January 31. (Yet another government agency whose rules PETA follows only when it's convenient.) As soon as we learn just how many animals PETA killed in 2006, we'll let you know.

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