2-1 Court Upholds Convictions Of Animal Activists

MARYCLAIRE DALE

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — In a split decision, a U.S. appeals court upheld the convictions of animal-rights activists charged under a terrorism statute with using their Web site to incite threats and vandalism against a company that tests products on animals.

The 2-1 decision was the first federal appellate court ruling on a constitutional challenge to the law.

Defense lawyers call the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty case only the latest example of the government infringing on activists' free speech. One compared it to the pursuit of communists and civil-rights activists a half-century ago.

"The government is always doing the same thing, prosecuting the loud leaders for conspiracy to commit particular crimes that they are not committing, and are not planning to commit," defense lawyer Peter Goldberger said Thursday.

Six members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty were convicted at a 2006 trial in New Jersey of conspiracy to violate the 1992 Animal Enterprise Protection Act. The law, since revised, aimed to protect animal research laboratories from illegal, sometimes violent protests.

The group was formed to protest the activities of Huntingdon Life Sciences in Franklin Township, N.J. The company had been a target of animal activists since video footage surfaced on television in the 1990s depicting animal abuse at its laboratory in the United Kingdom.