A Litigation Article from All-Creatures.org

Jury Finds Wayne and Paul Not Guilty for Rescuing Lily and Lizzie from Smithfield

From RightToRescue.com
October 2022

The investigators rescued 2 sick piglets, Lily, who had a severe leg injury, and Lizzie, who was malnourished and nursing on a shredded nipple.

In 2017, DxE investigators infiltrated a massive pig farm in the Utah desert, a facility owned by Smithfield/WH Group, the world’s largest pig killing company. This one Smithfield farm is 20 miles long with over 300 barns on site. The investigators filmed the conditions inside in 360 degree virtual reality footage. Their footage, titled "Operation Deathstar," documented row after row of mother pigs crammed inside gestation crates barely bigger than their bodies and piles of dead piglets covered in their mothers' feces.

The investigators rescued 2 sick piglets, Lily, who had a severe leg injury, and Lizzie, who was malnourished and nursing on a shredded nipple. They took Lily and Lizzie to a sanctuary to receive care. Then, they published the whole investigation and rescue online and in the New York Times to show the world the nightmarish cruelty happening inside Smithfield’s farms. The story went viral when the FBI started hunting for the piglets, raiding sanctuaries and even cutting off part of a pig’s ear to do DNA testing.

DxE investigators Wayne Hsiung and Paul Darwin Picklesimer went to trial October 3-7, 2022 in Washington County, Utah. On Saturday, October 8, after a full day of deliberations, the jury of 8 people unanimously found Wayne and Paul NOT GUILTY on all charges for rescuing Lily and Lizzie from Smithfield. Together, we have just set a powerful precedent for the legal right to rescue animals from abuse.

Excerpts from NYT article, Oct. 8, 2022:

The Utah trial highlighted what the defendants argued is a lack of transparency for the treatment of animals at large corporate farms.

Wayne Hsiung, one of the defendants [Paul Darwin Picklesimer was the other defendant], said he was stunned by the verdict, given that the judge had not let the jury consider any testimony explaining why the activists had targeted the farm, filmed their incursion and then taken two sick piglets on their way out.

“This is a resounding message about accountability and transparency,” Mr. Hsiung, 41, said in an interview after the jury’s decision. “Every company that is mistreating its animals and expecting that government and local elected officials will just go along with them because they have them in their pockets will now realize that the public will hold them accountable, even in places like Southern Utah.”

“Instead of trying to put us in prison,” he added, “The better thing to do is just take care of your animals.”

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