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.