This case presents an important question of first impression under California law: is the necessity defense available in cases in which the defendant breaks the law to rescue an animal from suffering?”

 

People in the legal community need no introduction to the Daily Journal. In the past, I have highlighted some opinions and columns from attorney Allan Dollison who is well known in Humboldt.

My Miranda's Rescue investigation resulted in someone sending me an opinion by staff writer John Roemer published in the Daily Journal mentioned in the screenshot.

At the end of the article, the editor has this footnote.

AI overview of the op-ed is " CA Supreme Court case People v. Hsiung. Case concerns trespassing to save distressed poultry using necessity defense. Court must rule if necessity defense applies to rescue animals from suffering."

Daily Journal has a paywall. I am making an exception and reprinting the entire opinion. The staff writer's bias and activism is obvious and while he is entitled to his opinion; when the State of California and the Attorney General side with animal activists just as they have in the Miranda's Rescue investigation; when they embolden animal activist lawyers such as the Ryther Law Group; justice is not blind and it is one sided. 

If you did not read this related post; you should.

https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2026/07/one-guess-on-who-may-have-threatened.html?m=1

Jennifer Raymond and Jenna Moore have admitted to trespassing on Shannon Miranda's property.  

If California writers and lawyers want to be activists they can; they do not get to use journalism and the courts to skirt the law for their misguided agenda. California one party rule and wokeness has permeated and compromised every level of government, the media and the courts.

The California Supreme Court does need to protect animals from suffering. They can start by sending a message to zealots that the court system is not here to side with their opinions, interpretations and that laws apply to everyone.

If these animal activists feel they are being ignored by law enforcement, welcome to reality. Who gets prosecuted, what calls get responded to is life. Should I call  Eureka Police Department or Humboldt County Sheriff every time I see an animal hoarder? To me 7 dogs including puppies barking in a van on a hot Humboldt day without the windows open because some old lady thinks she is "saving them" when they look exhausted and are suffering from heat exhausation is animal cruelty. People who do not bathe, brush and keep animals clean are cruel. Homeless men kicking their dogs, dragging them on the streets, not allowing the dog to pee or take a shit and dragging the animal because they need to get over to get their drug fix on 3rd or 4th and 5th street in Eureka and the animal finally losing control and defecating and then is being yelled at by the miscreant and dragged away is animal abuse.

I doubt the Ryther Law Group would represent me pro bono. I have not seen Jennifer Raymond or Jenna Moore rescue any of these helpless animals.

It did not take long for one of the deranged animal activist stalkers after this post to misuse my email, title it donation which was deceptive and go off on an angry, abusive  rant. The woman is not Jenna Moore or Jennifer Raymond. Proving my point that hatred and silencing anyone who stands in their way is their agenda. Another entitled, woke activist who thinks she can attack without consequences and is above the law. It was in my spam folder. I recognized the name. The email is now in the trash bin where it belongs. 

At least, some animal activists in LA are calling out animal abuse on Skid row.

Text of Daily Journal opinion:

Nonhuman animals have had mixed results in human courtrooms, but increasingly creatures great and small are represented by a growing network of activist attorneys. 

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed California’s Prevention of Cruelty to Farm Animals Act, passed by state voters in 2018 as Proposition 12.  

The law sets minimum confinement standards for farm animals and bans the sale in California of noncompliant products, even those produced elsewhere. Its foes in the farm industry contended that states cannot regulate commerce outside their borders. The high court saw it differently, 5-4. National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, 21-486 (S. Ct., op. filed May 11, 2023). 

In 2017 the California Supreme Court ruled 7-0 against a lower court’s order to improve the living conditions for Asian elephants at the Los Angeles Zoo. The court held that a civil lawsuit could not be used to enforce a criminal law against animal cruelty. Leider v. Lewis, S232622 (Ca. S. Ct., op. filed May 25, 2017). 

Now, as animal welfare activists continue to contest the law’s view that animals are merely property and promote their status as sentient beings meriting special protections, a new case involving the rescue of Sonoma County poultry has arrived at the California Supreme Court. People v. Hsiung, S297000 (Ca. S. Ct., pet. for rev. filed June 8, 2026). 

It concerns the right of humans to intervene in emergencies to aid farmed or captive animals in distress. The case comes as the animal rights movement appears to be advancing its cause, with new state laws against cat declawing, puppy mill bans and other harms. 

In the current case, the defendant is Wayne H. Hsiung, an attorney who once worked at DLA Piper US and Steptoe & Johnson LLP and left big law in 2013 to cofound Berkeley’s Direct Action Everywhere, a grassroots animal rights nonprofit known as DxE. 

Hsiung and hundreds of other protesters converged on Petaluma’s Sunrise Farms, a large commercial egg producer, and Reichardt Duck Farm, in 2018 and 2019 for nonviolent “open rescue” events to document alleged animal cruelty. 

Hsiung was arrested, charged, and convicted in 2023 on one felony count of conspiracy and two misdemeanor trespass charges, but two of the three convictions were overturned in April by a state appellate panel that cited trial court errors regarding Hsiung’s effort to present necessity and mistake of law defenses. People v. Hsiung, A169697 (Sonoma Co. Super. Ct., op. filed April 30, 2026). 

Both Attorney General Rob Bonta and Hsiung’s lawyers have petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case, each citing different asserted errors by the appellate panel. The outcome could affect future animal rescue efforts and other emergency situations. 

“This is one of the most important animal rights cases in the country on the question of whether someone can take emergency action to help an animal in distress,” said Steffen Seitz, a member of Hsiung’s defense team.  

“This case is ultimately about rescuing animals in danger of immediate or ongoing harms.” 

On the contrary, argued the attorney general, the Court of Appeal got it wrong by confusing two legal doctrines—necessity and mistake of law—and will create mischief in cases to come. 

“The opinion plants the seed for confusion in future cases about specific intent, necessity and mistake of law and makes a defendant’s own moral code a defense to specific intent crimes,” wrote Supervising Deputy Attorney General Seth K. Schalit for Bonta’s office.” 

“Under the opinion, a defendant who purposefully commits a specific intent crime (such as trespass with intent to interfere with  a lawful business) knowing the law criminalizes his actions, and who honestly but erroneously believes his illegal actions are morally justified by the necessity to advance what he perceives to be the greater good (such as rescuing animals from commercial farms) can now assert that he lacked a specific intent based on his own sense of justice,” added Schalit in a depublication request.  

“In short, a belief in necessity is now a defense.” 

As Schalit pointed out, a key issue is the scope of the necessity defense, the doctrine that an otherwise illegal deed can be justified by an emergency requiring action to prevent a greater harm. 

At the Court of Appeal, a group of scholars and academics—including Harvard’s Laurence H. Tribe—lined up behind Hsiung in friend of the court briefing. 

They spotlighted the key issue of whether nonhuman animals can shelter under the law of necessity: “This case presents an important question of first impression under California law: is the necessity defense available in cases in which the defendant breaks the law to rescue an animal from suffering?” 

Animals clearly deserve that protection, they added: “California law recognizes animals as sentient beings with the capacity to suffer significant harms. Animal suffering is a significant evil, both morally and legally, and is therefore the kind of harm that the necessity defense contemplates.” 

The professor who drafted the brief, Matthew Liebman of the University of San Francisco School of Law, said further support for Hsiung is in the works at the high court. He added that the animal rights movement is gaining ground. 

“The public reaction to this case and other rescue cases show that many people are beginning to understand the cruelty of industrial animal agriculture,” Liebman emailed. “People are increasingly sympathetic to those who feel frustrated by the inadequacies of animal protection laws and intervene to save animals' lives. 

“When a person breaks the law to protect animals, they ought to be able to present the necessity defense to the jury. Animal law as a field is growing significantly, and review in this case will signal that the courts take it seriously. “ 

Signers of the brief came from universities supporting study centers such as Liebman’s Justice for Animals Program, the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark Law School, the Animal Legal Education Initiative at The George Washington University Law School, the Animal Law Clinic at the University of Connecticut School of Law and the Animal Law and Policy Institute at the Vermont Law and Graduate School. 

Hsiung’s lead attorney is Justin F. Marceau, a professor and research scholar of animal law and policy at the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law. 

At trial, Hsiung attempted to raise the necessity defense to excuse trespassing to provide aid to animals suffering unlawfully. Long before the days of the protests at the farms, he entered Sunrise through unlocked gates and took videos to document apparently sick, injured, immobile and severely neglected animals. 

He shared that evidence with a veterinarian and a criminal law professor, who agreed that the footage showed severe overcrowding at the farm and animals suffering from visible illnesses or injuries that made it difficult for them to access food and water.  

The professor, Hadar Aviram of UC Law San Francisco, provided a written opinion offering legal justifications for taking actions to assist the animals at Sunrise. 

Hsiung and DxE colleagues also took their concerns to the Sonoma County district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s office. Those agencies took no action. 

On the day of the Sunrise protest, activists showed farm officials the Aviram opinion, entered barns and seized animals and were eventually arrested. Similar events took place at the Reichardt Duck Farm. 

Even so, Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Laura Passaglia ruled that Hsiung could not use a necessity defense or a mistake of law defense based on necessity, though she allowed him a limited use of a statute that authorizes trespass to provide food or water to a distressed animal. 

The jury convicted Hsiung of three out of four counts. He served about half of a 90-day sentence. 

Backing Hsiung’s actions on appeal was the Nonhuman Rights Project, a Florida-based nonprofit aiming to change animals’ legal status through impact litigation.  

René Descartes, the 17th-century philosopher, depicted animals as insentient, unthinking machines that “eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it, desire nothing, fear nothing and know nothing,” pointed out the project’s attorney Christopher A. Berry of San Francisco in a friend of the court brief. 

Descartes’ “ancient, dogmatic view is rejected today as uninformed and absurd,” Berry added. “Yet it underlies the trial court’s ruling, which denies the significance of animal suffering—even suffering that rises to the level of animal cruelty.” 

While the appellate panel knocked out two of Hsiung’s convictions, it held that the necessity defense did not apply because one element was missing: there must be an emergency situation threatening imminent harm. The lengthy preparations Hsiung and his fellow activists took before the Sunrise and Reichardt farm animal rescue events undermine any claim that an emergency left them no choice but to commit trespass. 

“Defendant’s and defendant’s DxE colleagues’ unlawful actions simply cannot be characterized as a response to an unforeseen situation presenting a need for immediate medical attention,” wrote Presiding Justice Teri L. Jackson of the 1st DCA’s Division Five for the panel. 

Animal rights activists contended that the emergency situations and imminent harm language were a court-created unwarranted addition to traditional necessity defense law.  

“The California Supreme Court has a real opportunity to affirm that courts can protect animals from unlawful suffering even in a case of first impression, and should not invent new limits to avoid doing so,” Berry emailed.  

“First, it can hold that animal cruelty is a significant evil the necessity defense reaches, since such cruelty is already illegal and plainly qualifies as an evil. Second, it can hold that cruelty does not stop being an emergency simply because it is ongoing. An emergency exists when cruelty persists, every lawful avenue has failed, and law enforcement refuses to act.” 

Also supporting Hsiung was Professor Kristen Stilt, the faculty director and founder of Harvard Law School’s Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program. Her argument was that California’s existing Vehicle Confinement Law, Good Samaritan Law and the Impounded Animal Law all express the public policy that preventing significant evil to an animal is a basis for the necessity defense. 

“Animal protection is increasingly a public priority that unites people from across the political spectrum,” said Stilt’s counsel, Vanessa Shakib of Advancing Law for Animals in Redondo Beach, who drafted Stilt’s friend of the court brief.  

“With broad public support, California has enacted some of the nation’s most robust animal welfare laws. Nearly two-thirds of California voters backed a ballot measure that banned extreme farmed animal abuse and the state Legislature unanimously passed a law giving citizens the right to take action to help animals in immediate danger. 

“Animal rescuers doing the job authorities refuse to do should be praised, not prosecuted.”