ST. GEORGE — A bill that supporters said closed a loophole that allowed a jury to acquit two people accused of burglary after taking two sick piglets from a Beaver County pig farm has passed both houses of the Utah Legislature and is heading to Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk.
The theft defense amendments bill, officially designated HB 114 in the 2023 Utah Legislature, passed the Utah Senate on Thursday in a 19-7 vote with three abstentions. Sen. Todd Weiler was the one Republican who joined all six Democrats in voting against the bill. Of Southern Utah’s senators, three of the four voted yes with Sen. Don Ipson, R-Washington County, absent.
If signed into law, the Utah Criminal Code will be changed to say that it is not a defense to take livestock from an owner if it is sick, injured or a liability to their owner.
Cox has not said whether he would sign the bill.
In an October trial in St. George that found Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) activists Wayne Hsiung and Paul Picklesimer not guilty, the jury used an instruction that they could not convict the two men if the pigs taken in March 2017 from the Smithfield Foods Circle Four Farm in Milford were sick and had no value.
In a statement sent to St. George News on Thursday, Almira Tanner, lead organizer for DxE, said the bill was designed to usurp the will of the St. George jury and “enables animal abuse.”
But on the floor of the Senate at the State Capitol in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Cedar City-based Sen. Evan Vickers, who was the Senate floor sponsor of the House bill, said the bill wasn’t meant to take revenge on the jury or the defendants in the trial.
“I would argue that’s not the case. The court case alerted us to a loophole,” Vickers said. “We want to make sure we’re protecting those farmers and ranchers.”
Picklesimer, who would be in the first of up to a five-year prison sentence if he was convicted by the jury, said in a statement he was “disgusted” by the bill passing but not surprised.
“In light of our acquittal for rescuing two piglets, Lily and Lizzie, from sickness and starvation at a Smithfield factory farm in Utah, legislators are trying to criminalize what Utahns know is the right thing to do,” Picklesimer said.
Sevier County-based Rep. Carl Albrecht, who introduced the bill in the House, has said the purpose of the bill is to stop what he said are attacks and “vigilantism” on the agriculture industry in rural areas of Southern Utah and the rest of the state.
All six of Southern Utah’s representatives voted yes when the bill passed the House, 65-4, on Jan. 27.
Check out all of St. George News’ coverage of the 2023 Utah Legislature here.
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