DxE investigator and animal rescuer Zoe Rosenberg is on trial in Sonoma County, California. She is facing years in jail for rescuing four sick and injured chickens from Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse. All media requests to record the trial have been denied, but you can follow along through these Court Watch summaries, on our Perdue Rescue Trial X account, on our Instagram, and on UnchainedTV. Check back regularly for new updates. Want to take action? Sign the petition at RightToRescue.com and share the news with your friends and family.

Monday, September 29th

Jury selection continued today. All ~130 jurors who were not previously excused for hardship returned, and the more extensive process of voir dire began. In this process, the judge, the prosecution, and the defense get to ask the jurors questions about beliefs and experiences that would prevent them from being impartial. By the end of the day, a few jurors had been excused for ‘cause’ (meaning they were unable to be impartial), and no jurors were officially selected. Jury selection will continue tomorrow. 

Tuesday, September 30th

It’s day six of jury selection. The judge, the prosecution, and the defense continued to question prospective jurors about their views on animals and activism, and their ability to put aside prior beliefs and judgements and just make a decision based on the facts of the case. Three jurors were excused for cause or hardship, and both sides started using their 10 peremptory strikes (where they can remove a juror without a cause challenge). The defense used four, and the prosecution used one. New jurors were called from the pool into the box to fill their spots, and another round of questioning began. The day ended without a jury selected. 

Wednesday, October 1st

Judge Gnoss does not hold trial court on Wednesdays so we're off today.

Thursday, October 2nd

It’s day seven of jury selection. Judge Gnoss indicated it’s time to get back to peremptory strikes. The prosecution passed, meaning they accept the jury as is, and then, to most people’s surprise, the defense passed as well! That means that the jury was selected within the first five minutes of court today. The final jury pool is made up of five women and seven men. However, four alternates still needed to be selected. After a couple more rounds of jurors being called into the box and questioned by Judge Gnoss, Hobson, and Little, one juror was excused for cause and several others were excused with peremptory strikes. By 4:20pm, four alternates were selected and the full jury was confirmed. Judge Gnoss gave the jurors standard instructions and disclaimers and the court clerk read the full charging document to the jurors. They were instructed to return Monday afternoon for opening statements. Tomorrow will be used for pre-trial issues that are not discussed in front of the jury. 

Friday, October 3rd

Today’s court session was used to resolve several pending pre-trial motions out of the presence of the jury. 

Judge Gnoss unfortunately ruled that investigator Raven Deerbrook will not be qualified as an expert witness and will not be allowed to testify about the 13 documents that she photographed inside the slaughterhouse. Additionally, Judge Gnoss ruled that Bradley Schrader, the Quality Assurance Manager for Perdue, could also not be used to lay the foundation for these 13 documents, meaning the documents cannot be introduced during the trial. Furthermore, the documents must be excluded from all opinions and testimony given by our expert veterinarian witnesses, including Dr. Rosenberg. This is a significant loss for our case. Judge Gnoss did rule, however, that Zoe will be allowed to testify in general terms about seeing these documents and the impact they had on her. 

The discussion turned to FOIA documents that Zoe and the defense team obtained after the fact that corroborate the authenticity of the aforementioned documents and Zoe’s concerns about high rates of disease at the facility. The prosecution objected to them being admitted, stating that they have no way of rebutting Zoe’s claims since the USDA refused their request to testify in this case but had previously told them that salmonella and campylobacter are not concerning since they are naturally occurring in chickens and can be killed with proper cooking. Judge Gnoss ruled against introducing the documents since they were obtained after June 2023 and would cause unnecessary confusion given their complexity. He stated they may be relevant to a case in which the entire chicken industry is on trial, but that they are just too much for this case. Zoe will still be able to testify that she had seen reports indicating there were high rates of disease at the slaughterhouse. 

The next topic of discussion was the veterinary records. Judge Gnoss clarified his earlier ruling that they will be allowed, but only for the four birds that Zoe specifically rescued. Judge Gnoss reserved his ruling on whether Dr. Castillo will be allowed to testify to corroborate Dr. Rosenberg’s opinion and said he’d rule on this after Dr. Rosenberg testifies. He did rule that the defense will be allowed a sur-rebuttal to the prosecution’s rebuttal veterinarian witness, Dr. Reimers. Presumably, Dr. Reimers will try to contradict what Dr. Rosenberg (and Dr. Castillo, if she is allowed to testify) will say, and this means the defense will get to reply to Dr. Reimers. 

Lastly, the defense brought up a surprising turn of events, which is that the prosecution has subpoenaed two DxE organizers - Cassie King and Paul Darwin Picklesimer - and we are not entirely sure why. Judge Gnoss seemed annoyed, and indicated he wanted a 402 hearing and an offer of proof from the prosecution before King and Picklesimer are brought in to testify. 

Overall, it was a hard day with some significant losses, and a few small wins. Trial will resume Monday at 1:30pm. The full jury will be present and it will finally be time for opening statements!

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