SAN JOSE CIRCUS RIPE FOR PROTEST
Bring out the lion suits, camcorders and bullhorns.
A federal judge in San Jose issued a permanent injunction last week that protects the “expressive activities” of animal rights activists who protest in front of the HP Pavilion.
The order, signed by U.S. District Judge James Ware last Wednesday, ends a three-year dispute that started when cops arrested protesters outside the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus in 2003 for “trespassing” in the HP Pavilion parking lot. The protesters accused the San Jose city attorney’s office of conspiring with the police and HP Pavilion “to concoct an arbitrary trespassing policy” in order to make the arrests.
Protesters can now pretty much go wherever the public is permitted. Ware’s order prevents HP Pavilion Management from “interfering with peaceful soliciting, leafleting, carrying billboards or sandwich boards or other peaceful expressive activities.”
G. Whitney Leigh, the San Francisco attorney representing the activists, has previously said his clients had protested the circus’s alleged mistreatment of animals for 10 years without incident. He suggested the city must have been under pressure from Ringling Bros. to quiet things down outside the HP Pavilion, where it has been performing since 1993.
The city disputed there was ever a conspiracy. Frank Ubhaus, a partner with Berliner Cohen in San Jose who is representing Ringling Bros. in Bolbol v. Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus, C-04-00082, didn’t respond to a phone call for comment.
� Julie O’Shea
EVEN ROACHES NEED LAWYERS
The cockroaches in the hit movie “Men in Black” may have been threatening the planet, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t deserve representation.
Thanks to the American Humane Associations’s efforts, the filmmakers had to use fake roaches to ensure the tiny critters wouldn’t get killed in their movie debut.
Though the movie is almost 10 years old, it’s still the example Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps attorney Kristina Hancock cites when her students at California Western School of Law ask her just what the lowliest animal is that needs protecting.
This year, as the newly appointed chairwoman of the American Bar Association’s Animal Law Committee, Hancock is hoping to see some changes in terms of how all animals are shielded � especially in times of disaster.
When she worked with animal rescue efforts in New Orleans last year, she saw firsthand what happens when pets aren’t part of the plan. “A lot of humans died because they wouldn’t leave their animals behind,” she said.
The ABA’s 400,000 members have since thrown their weight behind a U.S. Senate bill that will require states to include animals in their disaster relief in order to receive Federal Emergency Management Agency funding. In order to get approval for the support letter, the group’s animal law committee went through an arduous process, making sure no one in the ABA objected to the strong requirements they were urging.
“These letters carry a lot of weight,” Hancock explained. “It was a big deal to get this approval.”
The bill, SB 2548, which includes many of the group’s suggestions, is expected to be refined in committee together with a similar House bill.
Among the committee’s other upcoming efforts will be a presentation on animals in entertainment at the ABA’s annual meeting in San Francisco next year, where one speaker will talk about how the American Humane Association monitors films to ensure no animal is hurt.
The committee also plans to work with Duke University School of Law on a program examining the history and future of animal law, especially in light of advances in genetic engineering and cloning.
Hancock, who has a blind kitten and two other cats of her own, said she’s looking forward to chairing the group in a year in which she expects significant strides to be made.
“Animal law,” she said, “is exploding.”
� Kellie Schmitt
