Prosecutors Halt Complaint, Dismiss Perdue Animal Cruelty Charge

By Gretchen Parker

The Associated Press
February 3, 2005

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Worcester County prosecutors halted an animal cruelty complaint against Perdue Farms Inc. this week, in a move that animal advocates say clipped the judicial process short and kept the poultry giant from having to face charges in court.

A Worcester County District Court commissioner last week brought a misdemeanor animal cruelty charge against Perdue, after Compassion Over Killing filed a complaint about the now-closed Showell processing plant. But before Perdue's summons could be issued, Worcester County District Attorney Joel Todd requested the case be dismissed.

An assistant state's attorney appeared before District Court Judge Patrick Hayman in Ocean City on Monday and moved that Perdue essentially be acquitted of the charge.

"In my opinion, the charges never should have been issued," said Todd, who oversees all prosecutions in the county. "I wanted this case over, because this defendant is not guilty."

Because the state's attorney's office moved to acquit Perdue -- rather than merely declining to prosecute -- the charge can't be brought later.

"I didn't think it was fair that a defendant, who we know is not guilty, should have to go through the trouble of hiring a criminal attorney" to defend itself, Todd said.

Compassion Over Killing accused Perdue of animal cruelty in October, after an activist secretly videotaped operations at the plant in Showell. The tape showed chickens flapping after their throats were slit on a processing line and piles of live chickens being shoved and thrown down a processing line.

"This essentially cuts the public input out of the process," said Carter Dillard, attorney for the advocacy group. The acquittal "sends a message" to other corporations in Maryland that they don't have to abide by the state's animal cruelty laws, Dillard said.

Perdue, which closed the Showell plant in early November as part of its plans to streamline operations, says they say they saw no intentional cruelty in the videotape, and that the workers afterward were shown how to handle the animals with more care. A veterinarian for the company said the flapping happens because of an involuntary muscle reaction after the birds lose consciousness.

The tape, originally 20 hours and edited to seven minutes, also shows dying birds abandoned on a conveyer belt and being piled onto each other in a bin while workers take lunch breaks.
Perdue is the third-largest poultry producer in the United States.

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press