NC Attorney General Urges SCOTUS to Take Up Ag-Gag Law
The North Carolina State Attorney General’s Office has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal of North Carolina’s ag-gag law, twice struck down by lower courts as unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.
But animal activist groups including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and other opponents of the law told the high court the Fourth Circuit's ruling should stand.
In 2015, North Carolina passed the Property Protection Act to prevent activists from misrepresenting themselves in order to gain access and secretly film activities in the plants. It allowed courts to assess civil penalties of $5,000 per day on employees who documented alleged wrongdoing – in video, audio, or written work – from a business’s non-public areas, and then passed that information to anyone besides the employer or law enforcement.
Two years later, a federal judge declared the law violated Constitutional provisions protecting free speech.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, along with the North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation, filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court in May. The state argued a Supreme Court decision is necessary to clarify the various courts’ legal interpretations, as well as the nation’s “patchwork” of similar laws. In a half-dozen other states, the courts have also struck down the laws as unconstitutional or greatly limited their scope, NC News Online reports.
Last week, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Animal Defense Fund and several other groups responded in a court filing. They argue the law unconstitutionally suppresses their right to conduct undercover animal-cruelty investigations and to publicize what they learn, Law360 reports.
The activist groups claim the law restricts employees from talking publicly about what's happening at their workplace or in areas of their workplace that are not open to the general public. They contend that the law even tries to penalize actions like reporting problems to government agencies or speaking out about important issues in front of lawmakers.
The state argued that certain types of speech, like audio-visual recordings, should not be protected by the First Amendment in certain situations. The state also questioned whether the First Amendment should apply at all on private property, regardless of the type of speech involved.
In separate petitions for writ of certiorari, North Carolina and the Farm Bureau said the First Amendment does not protect the animal and environmental groups' potentially illegal activities as defined by the act, Law360 reports.
“The animal groups slammed the Farm Bureau and state's arguments. They said the state conceded audiovisual recording is typically ‘protected speech’ while at the same time arguing any such recordings should be excluded from First Amendment protection when it occurs as part of the groups' work,” the Law360 article said.
The North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation's Secretary and General Counsel, Jake Parker, said the animal groups' brief underscored why the Supreme Court should take the case.
"Fundamental private property rights are at stake here, and the activists misread the Supreme Court's First Amendment cases to justify blatant invasions of private businesses," Parker said in a statement Thursday. "This case is an excellent vehicle for the court to clarify that the First Amendment does not immunize trespassing and theft."
Read More:
Kansas' 'Ag-Gag' Law Denied a Revisit by Supreme Court
“Targeted” Law in Iowa Ruled Unconstitutional by Federal Judge
