Post by diamondindykin on Jan 22, 2007 11:45:25 GMT -5
Horse meat ban is upheld
Court ruling could shut down two area slaughterhouses
11:58 PM CST on Saturday, January 20, 2007
By JIM GETZ / The Dallas Morning News
A federal appeals court has opened the way for authorities to shut down horse-slaughter plants in Kaufman and Fort Worth, ruling that a state ban on killing horses for human consumption remains in force despite legal challenges.
The plants, which slaughter tens of thousands of horses for meals overseas, won't close immediately, however. Fort Worth attorney David Broiles said Saturday that he would either ask for a rehearing before the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans or petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
AP
A jogger passes by Dallas Crown Inc., one of three horse-slaughter plants in the United States.
Still, Mr. Broiles acknowledged he was badly stung by the ruling against his clients. The decision was handed down Friday by a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit.
"I was taken aback by the result. It was unexpected," said Mr. Broiles, who last year won a permanent injunction in federal district court in Fort Worth preventing authorities from closing the plants.
It was that ruling that Ann Diamond, a Tarrant County assistant district attorney, appealed to the 5th Circuit. The appellate judges agreed with her arguments that no state or federal laws pre-empted or repealed Texas' ban, and neither did the federal commerce clause, which regulates interstate trade.
"We got 'em all," she said Saturday.
The ruling affects Beltex Corp. of Fort Worth and Dallas Crown of Kaufman. Beltex employs about 90 people, and its annual sales are $35 million, according to its most recent report. Dallas Crown employs about 40 workers and has annual sales of about $8.8 million. Both companies are foreign owned and sell horse meat to establishments in France, Belgium and Japan.
The only other horse-slaughter plant in the U.S., Cavel International of DeKalb, Ill., is not affected because the ruling concerned Texas law. And Ms. Diamond noted that reinforcing that law – rather than making policy on horse slaughter – was exactly the point of her efforts.
Also Online
12/06/06: Effort seeks last-minute horsemeat ban
09/24/06: Slaughter legislation winds up one to have and to hold
09/22/06: Cornyn's move could stall horse slaughter ban vote
09/07/06: Horse slaughter ban OK'd
08/27/05: Horse-slaughtering plants win in court
"Our job was to defend the statute, what the law is," she said. "We have never taken a position [about] what the Legislature should do. We defend what they [legislators] have done."
1949 ban on sales
The case began in 2002, when Attorney General John Cornyn issued an opinion that a 1949 law banning the slaughter of horses to sell the meat for human consumption was still in force. To pre-empt potential charges from Tarrant and Kaufman counties, the two plants and a third, Empacadora de Carnes de Fresnillo of Mexico, which transports horse meat through Texas airports, filed for an injunction to prevent the law's enforcement.
It worked. In August 2005, U.S. District Judge Terry Means agreed with the plants, saying subsequent state laws had essentially repealed the 1949 law and that the state law placed a burden on interstate and international commerce. The 5th Circuit ruling Friday overturned him on all of those points.
Mr. Broiles believes there's still a chance he could prevail by arguing that the state law interferes with interstate commerce.
"A part of the activity that's involved is getting the horses into Texas," he said. "If you shut that down, I think it's disingenuous to say that interstate commerce is not involved. And when the meat flies out, it crosses state borders."
Decision hailed
Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, hailed the appeals court's decision.
"I think this is a dead end for them," he said Saturday of the slaughter plant owners. "They should accept the decision and shut down the plants, which have been on borrowed time because of the federal legislative effort on the subject."
That effort is embodied in legislation just reintroduced in Congress that would put a federal ban on horse slaughter for human consumption. Mr. Pacelle noted that the Democratic-controlled Congress is more in favor of a ban, and two former committee chairmen who opposed a ban, Rep. Henry Bonilla of Texas and Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana, were defeated in November.
"Only one plant in one state remains, and we need a federal solution so they don't move plants from state to state," Mr. Pacelle said. "All we want is an up-or-down vote, and Bonilla and Burns denied us that in the last Congress."
Former West Texas congressman Charlie Stenholm, who lobbies for the horse-slaughter industry, could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Mr. Stenholm and others have argued that a ban would create a surplus of unwanted horses and force more slaughtering to occur in Mexico and Canada.
Mr. Pacelle and others say perfectly healthy horses – not unwanted ones – are being slaughtered, and a ban would also prohibit transport of live horses to Mexico or Canada.
A federal ban would pre-empt any legislation introduced in the Texas Legislature designed to counteract the 5th Circuit ruling, Ms. Diamond said.
Ms. Diamond said Mr. Broiles has 14 days to ask for a hearing in New Orleans or 90 days to petition the Supreme Court. If Mr. Broiles' clients decide not to fight the ruling, the case would return to U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, and Ms. Diamond could begin prosecuting the plants if they don't shut down. Potential penalties, she said, could be many times what the companies earn in a year.
If Mr. Broiles appeals, the plants will remain open until the court effort is exhausted. The Supreme Court, however, is not required to hear a case. If it doesn't hear this one – or if it's not appealed – the latest ruling would stand and the plants' closure would be delayed by only a few months.
Perry backs ban
In a pre-election interview that appeared in Texas Horse Talk magazine last year, Gov. Rick Perry said he supported the ban. On Saturday, Mr. Perry's spokesman, Robert Black, said the governor stands by that position.
Kaufman County's new district attorney, Rick Harrison, said he would contact Ms. Diamond next week to get up to speed on the issue.
It is unclear how the legal wrangling at the state and federal levels will affect a trial set for Saturday in district court in Kaufman. Last year, the city's Board of Zoning Adjustment ruled that the slaughter plant there represented a nonconforming use and had to shut down, but the plant appealed.
In Kaufman on Saturday, Mayor Paula Bacon, who has long opposed the local plant because she says it has repeatedly violated the city's wastewater law and drawn resident opposition, said she was ecstatic about the ruling. She called on Mr. Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott to enforce the law.
Of the slaughter plants, she said: "They laughed at the city as they polluted our water and air. They laughed at the state law, and they laughed at Congress. The joke's over."
E-mail jgetz@dallasnews.com
Court ruling could shut down two area slaughterhouses
11:58 PM CST on Saturday, January 20, 2007
By JIM GETZ / The Dallas Morning News
A federal appeals court has opened the way for authorities to shut down horse-slaughter plants in Kaufman and Fort Worth, ruling that a state ban on killing horses for human consumption remains in force despite legal challenges.
The plants, which slaughter tens of thousands of horses for meals overseas, won't close immediately, however. Fort Worth attorney David Broiles said Saturday that he would either ask for a rehearing before the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans or petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
AP
A jogger passes by Dallas Crown Inc., one of three horse-slaughter plants in the United States.
Still, Mr. Broiles acknowledged he was badly stung by the ruling against his clients. The decision was handed down Friday by a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit.
"I was taken aback by the result. It was unexpected," said Mr. Broiles, who last year won a permanent injunction in federal district court in Fort Worth preventing authorities from closing the plants.
It was that ruling that Ann Diamond, a Tarrant County assistant district attorney, appealed to the 5th Circuit. The appellate judges agreed with her arguments that no state or federal laws pre-empted or repealed Texas' ban, and neither did the federal commerce clause, which regulates interstate trade.
"We got 'em all," she said Saturday.
The ruling affects Beltex Corp. of Fort Worth and Dallas Crown of Kaufman. Beltex employs about 90 people, and its annual sales are $35 million, according to its most recent report. Dallas Crown employs about 40 workers and has annual sales of about $8.8 million. Both companies are foreign owned and sell horse meat to establishments in France, Belgium and Japan.
The only other horse-slaughter plant in the U.S., Cavel International of DeKalb, Ill., is not affected because the ruling concerned Texas law. And Ms. Diamond noted that reinforcing that law – rather than making policy on horse slaughter – was exactly the point of her efforts.
Also Online
12/06/06: Effort seeks last-minute horsemeat ban
09/24/06: Slaughter legislation winds up one to have and to hold
09/22/06: Cornyn's move could stall horse slaughter ban vote
09/07/06: Horse slaughter ban OK'd
08/27/05: Horse-slaughtering plants win in court
"Our job was to defend the statute, what the law is," she said. "We have never taken a position [about] what the Legislature should do. We defend what they [legislators] have done."
1949 ban on sales
The case began in 2002, when Attorney General John Cornyn issued an opinion that a 1949 law banning the slaughter of horses to sell the meat for human consumption was still in force. To pre-empt potential charges from Tarrant and Kaufman counties, the two plants and a third, Empacadora de Carnes de Fresnillo of Mexico, which transports horse meat through Texas airports, filed for an injunction to prevent the law's enforcement.
It worked. In August 2005, U.S. District Judge Terry Means agreed with the plants, saying subsequent state laws had essentially repealed the 1949 law and that the state law placed a burden on interstate and international commerce. The 5th Circuit ruling Friday overturned him on all of those points.
Mr. Broiles believes there's still a chance he could prevail by arguing that the state law interferes with interstate commerce.
"A part of the activity that's involved is getting the horses into Texas," he said. "If you shut that down, I think it's disingenuous to say that interstate commerce is not involved. And when the meat flies out, it crosses state borders."
Decision hailed
Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, hailed the appeals court's decision.
"I think this is a dead end for them," he said Saturday of the slaughter plant owners. "They should accept the decision and shut down the plants, which have been on borrowed time because of the federal legislative effort on the subject."
That effort is embodied in legislation just reintroduced in Congress that would put a federal ban on horse slaughter for human consumption. Mr. Pacelle noted that the Democratic-controlled Congress is more in favor of a ban, and two former committee chairmen who opposed a ban, Rep. Henry Bonilla of Texas and Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana, were defeated in November.
"Only one plant in one state remains, and we need a federal solution so they don't move plants from state to state," Mr. Pacelle said. "All we want is an up-or-down vote, and Bonilla and Burns denied us that in the last Congress."
Former West Texas congressman Charlie Stenholm, who lobbies for the horse-slaughter industry, could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Mr. Stenholm and others have argued that a ban would create a surplus of unwanted horses and force more slaughtering to occur in Mexico and Canada.
Mr. Pacelle and others say perfectly healthy horses – not unwanted ones – are being slaughtered, and a ban would also prohibit transport of live horses to Mexico or Canada.
A federal ban would pre-empt any legislation introduced in the Texas Legislature designed to counteract the 5th Circuit ruling, Ms. Diamond said.
Ms. Diamond said Mr. Broiles has 14 days to ask for a hearing in New Orleans or 90 days to petition the Supreme Court. If Mr. Broiles' clients decide not to fight the ruling, the case would return to U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, and Ms. Diamond could begin prosecuting the plants if they don't shut down. Potential penalties, she said, could be many times what the companies earn in a year.
If Mr. Broiles appeals, the plants will remain open until the court effort is exhausted. The Supreme Court, however, is not required to hear a case. If it doesn't hear this one – or if it's not appealed – the latest ruling would stand and the plants' closure would be delayed by only a few months.
Perry backs ban
In a pre-election interview that appeared in Texas Horse Talk magazine last year, Gov. Rick Perry said he supported the ban. On Saturday, Mr. Perry's spokesman, Robert Black, said the governor stands by that position.
Kaufman County's new district attorney, Rick Harrison, said he would contact Ms. Diamond next week to get up to speed on the issue.
It is unclear how the legal wrangling at the state and federal levels will affect a trial set for Saturday in district court in Kaufman. Last year, the city's Board of Zoning Adjustment ruled that the slaughter plant there represented a nonconforming use and had to shut down, but the plant appealed.
In Kaufman on Saturday, Mayor Paula Bacon, who has long opposed the local plant because she says it has repeatedly violated the city's wastewater law and drawn resident opposition, said she was ecstatic about the ruling. She called on Mr. Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott to enforce the law.
Of the slaughter plants, she said: "They laughed at the city as they polluted our water and air. They laughed at the state law, and they laughed at Congress. The joke's over."
E-mail jgetz@dallasnews.com
