A few weeks ago I had written about the lab testing of decompression's impact on sheep that was being conduct at University of Wisconsin at Madison. Since Dane County District Attorney Blanchard decided to turn away from what was going on, Alliance for Animals and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals decided to go at it without him.
Yesterday attorneys from the animal welfare groups asked Dane County Circuit Court Judge Amy R. Smith at a hearing to order a special prosecutor to file civil charges against the university employees. They were able to do this because of a Wisconsin law that allows citizens to ask a judge to order prosecution. Judge Smith should be issuing a ruling later this month.
This is not the first time that animal activists have had to look to existing law, not targeted at animals, to protect them. Lawyers in Indiana, Oregon and Washington state have used foreclosure laws to secure liens on horses, dogs and other pets of people charged with abuse to seize the animals. After securing the liens, the pets are auctioned off to shelters who then adopt them out.
Read more in the Wall Street Journal.
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