AEPA- SHAC Law
[FindLaw - opinon]
In October, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a split decision in a criminal case
against a group of individual animal rights activists and their organization,
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty ("SHAC"). SHAC strongly objects to, and
protests, animal cruelty at Huntingdon's labs. The defendants were prosecuted
under a now-outmoded version of the federal Animal Enterprise Protection Act
(AEPA).
In Part One of this two-part series of columns, I discussed the
evidence against the defendants, the text of the relevant version of
the
AEPA, and the basic gist of the defendants' constitutional
challenge. That
challenge depends upon the due process right to know
which conduct will, and
will not, be deemed criminal; and upon the
First Amendment right to protest
action with which one strongly
disagrees.
In this column, Part Two in
the series, I will further detail and
comment upon the defendants'
constitutional arguments.
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full story:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20091123.html
