Monday, October 27th

Court began outside the presence of the jury, with Paul Darwin Picklesimer taking the stand once again with EmilyRose Johns, their attorney. Johns argued the prosecutors still had not presented Picklesimer with immunity from Alameda County and the immunity offer from Solano County was inadequate because it was not from the District Attorney and was not signed by a judge in that county. Prosecutors had hoped to remove Picklesimer’s ability to plead the 5th and not testify. However, after a heated back and forth between the attorneys, Judge Gnoss ruled that the prosecution’s attempt to place Picklesimer in front of a jury lacked foundation, saying Picklesimer's statements were not proper statements of a co-conspirator and were simply statements reporting on the actions taking place after Rosenberg's action. Picklesimer was dismissed without having to testify.

When the jury arrived after lunch, the prosecution re-called Allison Howlett, the environmental safety manager at Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry. She previously testified in their case in chief and was called again today as a rebuttal witness. Today, Howlett testified about the red denaturant that Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry supposedly sprays on condemned birds and other chicken parts in the offal area as a way to mark them as ‘not for human consumption.’ She testified that those condemned birds and parts are sent to a company called DarPro for rendering to make dog food and other products. The implication of her testimony is that Rosenberg was wrong about seeing signs of birds being boiled alive in the condemned pile, since their red bodies could have been denaturant.

Howlett then testified about a photo that she had taken recently at the slaughterhouse, in the middle of trial, of the denaturant sprayed all over a pile of condemned body parts. However, the photo looks significantly different from the ones taken by Deerbrook at the slaughterhouse, which could indicate those piles had not been denatured and the bright red bodies were, in fact, birds who had been boiled alive. Howlett said the photos looked different because of the lighting and because the photo she took was of denaturant on bones, not on muscle tissue.

After Howlett was excused, the prosecution indicated they had no more rebuttal witnesses, which means evidence is officially closed. The jury was excused and the attorneys spent the rest of the afternoon finalizing the jury instructions which will be read to the jury tomorrow morning. The jury will then hear closing arguments tomorrow afternoon and will begin their deliberations.

Tuesday, October 28th

Court began today with Judge Gnoss giving his ruling on the defense's requested special instruction clarifying that a good faith belief is judged subjectively to the defendant, not objectively. He denied the request. The rest of the morning hour was filled by Judge Gnoss reading the jury instructions to the jury. This took about 50 minutes. He instructed them not to be biased, to listen to other jurors' perspectives, to use their notes but know they could be inaccurate, and to consider both direct evidence and circumstantial evidence, among other things. He gave the mistake of law jury instruction, explaining that the defendant is not guilty of count 1 (Conspiracy) and count 2 (Trespass with intent to interfere with a lawful business) if she made a good faith mistake about the lawfulness of her actions.

There was a shorter-than-usual lunch break from 12 to 1:15 because closing arguments were expected to be quite long and the judge really wanted to get the case to the jury today. After lunch, we first heard the prosecution's closing argument, which lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes. DDA Matt Hobson started with what he said the case is not about. He said this case is not about free speech or lawful protest or silencing dissent or punishing compassion or about commercial animal agriculture or activism. He said it’s about conduct, blatantly illegal conduct. He said the general intent crimes (count 3 trespass and count 4 tampering with a vehicle) do not require that the defendant intended to break the law, and he said "she admitted these things...she admitted it openly." Since he felt these charges were already proven, he focused his argument on the specific intent crimes where mistake of law is a defense. To refute Rosenberg's good faith belief in the lawfulness of her actions, he brought up previous arrests of DxE activists (in very different contexts), the fact that the attorney who wrote the legal opinion Rosenberg relied upon shares her beliefs in animal rights, and the beliefs of Rosenberg about how all slaughter is wrong. He said, "Even if they were killing animals in a humane way, the defendant wouldn't think it was humane." He showed various social media posts from Rosenberg that he had used in her cross-examination saying things like "Killing animals for food when other options are available should be illegal." From these posts, he concluded, "That's motive ladies and gentlemen. That's her intent." 

In addition to focusing on her long-term goal of ending all slaughter, Hobson's other key argument was that Rosenberg acted not to help suffering animals, but for publicity. He said DxE talks about how they're 'open' but "is that because they're concerned about the animals or because they want publicity?" He questioned why anyone was filming the rescue when they could have been carrying more buckets to rescue more animals, saying, "Getting filmed is more important than those chickens. Getting publicity is more important than those chickens."

There was a short afternoon recess and then Chris Carraway, Staff Attorney at the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project, began his closing argument. He opened by saying, "This case is about what's in Zoe Rosenberg's heart." He explained the burden of guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt" and how it's very hard to know someone else's intent, especially beyond a reasonable doubt, but that Rosenberg actually told the jury her intent was rescue. He said, "It's not as if this case came from some great detective work. Zoe put it out there because she believed it was lawful and her intent was out there." He explained Rosenberg believed the necessity defense applied to her actions and she believed this for good reason, including because of a legal opinion from a trusted attorney who was a federal prosector for longer than Rosenberg has been alive, as well as Rosenberg's own experiences seeing animal cruelty at Petaluma Poultry and reporting it to no avail, and her experiences rescuing animals right in front of, or with the help of, law enforcement. He explained her entire life has revolved around compassion and care for animals. At age 11, he said, instead of playing video games or doing sports, she was learning how to build a chicken coop and care for chickens with her mother, a veterinarian. He explained that her relationship with chickens is like most people's relationships with their dogs and cats, and that she sees them as individuals, but Perdue doesn't. He said, "They look at them by the truckload. They look at them as products." When some birds are scalded alive, Perdue doesn't care, he said. "But for Zoe Rosenberg - and especially for the birds - it matters deeply."

Carraway went through the evidence she reviewed that compounded her concerns and beliefs about animal cruelty at Petaluma Poultry, including video footage Deerbrook showed her of birds who were supposed to be stunned coming out unstunned and flailing on the slaughter line, some of them hung by just one leg, as well as documents confirming numbers of birds being scalded alive. He pointed out the State has presented zero evidence to dispute these things, because they can't. Though the State did contest the bright red flesh that Rosenberg believed was from birds who were scalded alive, Carraway argued the photos of chicken parts sprayed with red denaturant did not look like the red chickens Deerbrook photographed whose feet and feathers were not red, only their skin. But even if Rosenberg was wrong about this, Carraway argued, she doesn't have to be right for mistake of law. "It's what Zoe believed."

Carraway also addressed the State's argument that this rescue was for publicity, saying, "Of course Zoe Rosenberg wants awareness. She can't solve this problem by open rescuing every single bird that Petaluma Poultry is neglecting...This is a problem that cannot be solved by Zoe Rosenberg alone."

At almost 4pm, Hobson stood up to speak again as is the standard process. The State speaks twice because the burden to prove the charges is on them. He said he agreed that not a lot of people have the same relationship with chickens that the defendant has, but a lot of people have dogs. He then posed this thought experiment: Ask yourself if you thought dogs were being boiled alive in a facility, would you have gone in there on May 18, 19, 20...? Or would you have waited weeks? He concludes from this: "Her intent was for publicity."

Finally, around a quarter after 4, Judge Gnoss gave the final instructions and told the jury they would head to the deliberation room and since it was so late in the day already, just assign a foreperson and set a schedule for their deliberations, including what time they want to come back tomorrow. He cautioned them that stating their opinions too strongly may interfere with an open discussion and to treat others courteously. The 12 jurors went off with the bailiff and the 4 alternates were dismissed but kept on call in case one of the 12 jurors becomes unavailable. Just a few minutes later, the 12 jurors returned to say they would return tomorrow, Wednesday at 10am to deliberate.

Wednesday, October 29th

After deliberating for 3.5 hours, the jury indicated they had a verdict, and Zoe, her legal team, and a group of supporters returned to the courtroom.

The jury found Zoe Rosenberg guilty on all charges (felony conspiracy, two counts of misdemeanor trespass, and one count of misdemeanor tampering with a motor vehicle).

After the jury was excused, Hobson requested that Judge Gnoss remand Rosenberg into custody to await sentencing, which is set for December 3rd. He dismissed the severity of her medical issues and argued she was a danger to the public. Luckily, Judge Gnoss did not agree, but he did order that Rosenberg be put back on a GPS ankle monitor and other strict conditions, including staying away from agricultural operations in Sonoma County and all Perdue-owned facilities. He also ordered that she not have contact with six named co-conspirators, including defense witnesses Carla Cabral and Raven Deerbrook.

This is unjust and heartbreaking. Still, we know that you have to take big risks to change the world. With persistence and courage, we will see Petaluma Poultry shut down before we know it. But that requires continued action.

We are hosting a Zoom call tomorrow (Thursday, October 30th) at 6pm PT/9pm ET at dxe.io/actioncall. Please join to hear directly from Zoe why she won't stop and she doesn't want you to either.

Let's make this repression backfire.

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