animal law

Idaho's "ag gag" law banning undercover surveillance inside of agricultural operations has been ruled unconstitutional, The Guardian's Rory Carroll reports. U.S. District Judge B Lynn Winmill ruled the ban violates the constitutional right to free speech and to equal protection: "'An agricultural facility’s operations that affect food and worker safety are not exclusively a private matter. Food and worker safety are matters of public concern.”'

Winmill also ruled that the Idaho statute violated the constitutional protection for equal protection under the law because it was motivated by animus toward animal rights activists.

A divided West Virginia Supreme Court has reversed a court decision ordering a pit bull be put down, The Herald-Dispatch's Curtis Johnson reports. Pit bull Tinkerbell bit a boy as he was passing by, and the boy required 14 stiches on his face.

The trial judge found that one bite was sufficient evidence to deem Tinkerbell vicious. But the Supreme Court, 3-2, found that one bite did not meet the state code definition for dogs that display a "habit of biting people." The majority also found that the trial judge "relied upon a breed-specific presumption not found in state code, which would allow a pit bull's death based solely upon the belief its breed is inherently vicious," Johnson reports.