Court won’t revive ban on secret filming at slaughterhouses
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Kansas to revive a law, earlier struck down by lower courts, that banned secret filming at slaughterhouses and other livestock facilities.
The justices did not comment in leaving in place a ruling by a federal appeals court panel that the so-called ag-gag law violated the First Amendment by stifling speech critical of animal agriculture.
A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a split decision ruled that even if deception is used to enter private property, Kansas may not discriminate based on whether the person intends to harm or help the enterprise.
The appellate ruling upheld a permanent injunction issued by a federal judge in 2020.
The Kansas law made it a crime for anyone to take a picture or video at an animal facility without the owner’s consent or to enter the facility under false pretenses.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Center for Food Safety were among the groups that challenged the ban.
Federal appeals courts considering similar laws in Iowa and Idaho had split over the issue, raising Kansas’ hope that the high court would step in.
Texas death row inmate to get high Court review
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed, who claims untested crime-scene evidence will help clear him.
Reed was sentenced to death for the 1996 killing of 19-year-old Stacey Stites. Prosecutors say Reed raped and strangled Stites as she made her way to work at a supermarket in Bastrop, a rural community about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Austin.
Reed has long maintained that her fiance, former police officer Jimmy Fennell, was the real killer. Reed says Fennell was angry because Stites, who was white, was having an affair with Reed, who is Black. Fennell, who served time for sexual assault and was released from prison in 2018, has denied killing Stites.
The justices will take up the case in the fall. The issue is whether Reed waited too long to ask for DNA testing of items recovered from and near Stiles’ body, clothing and items found in or near Fennell’s truck.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Reed.
