(CN) — Two Iowa laws aimed at protecting livestock facilities from animal rights groups trespassing to conduct surveillance and report animal abuse are not unconstitutional, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held Monday.
In both rulings, a three-judge panel of the St. Louis, Missouri-based appellate court reversed district court rulings that struck down two to versions of the so-called “ag-gag” law unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment rights of the animal rights groups. The panel, however, preserved one issue for further trial court proceedings.
One Iowa statute is designed to prevent trespassing with the intent of filming animal abuse. The other statute forbidding making false statements or misrepresentations to obtain employment at a livestock facility with the intent of exposing alleged animal abuse.
Iowa’s statute enhances trespassing criminal penalties for a person who “knowingly places or uses a camera or electronic surveillance device that transmits or records images or data while the device is on the trespassed property,” and carries a penalty of up to more than $8,540 and two years’ in prison.
The plaintiffs, nonprofit organizations dedicated to animal welfare, environmental protection and other advocacy issues, argued in a suit naming Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and other state officials that the steeper penalties in the trespass law chilled their protected activity under the First Amendment.
A federal court ruled for the plaintiffs, holding that the statute was facially invalid because it was not narrowly tailored to achieve a substantial state interest, and permanently enjoined enforcement of the act.
In defending the 2021 statute during a Sept. 20, 2023, oral argument, Deputy Iowa Attorney General Leif Olson told the panel of judges that trespassers cannot cloak their illegal actions in the practice of journalism.
“Those who style themselves journalists are not exempt from the law,” Olson said. “The question here is whether plaintiffs who call themselves news gatherers and publishers are exempt from generally applicable prohibition on conducting additional invasions of privacy that follow a criminal trespass that is already invading privacy. They are not.”
In Monday’s decision reversing the trial court, U.S. Circuit Judge L. Steven Grasz, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs’ argument that the statute is unconstitutional on its face “fails because the act has a plainly legitimate sweep and it is narrowly tailored to achieve the state’s significant government interests.”
Grasz added that “trespassing is a legally cognizable injury because it harms the privacy and property interests of property owners and other lawfully-present persons. Trespassers exacerbate that harm when they use a camera while committing their crime. The act is tailored to target that harm and redress that evil. Because the act’s restrictions on the use of a camera only apply to situations when there has first been an unlawful trespass, the act does not burden substantially more speech than is necessary to further the state’s legitimate interests.”
The appellate panel, however, remanded a question regarding a provision of the statute that prohibits the “use” of a recording device in the course of trespassing, which the panel said plaintiffs have standing to challenge as unconstitutional.
On the second statute, which outlaws fraudulent employment applications to gain access to livestock facilities, the Iowa Legislature amended the original version of the statute in response to an earlier Eighth Circuit ruling on the constitutionality question.
The amended version limited the scope of the law to forbidding the use of deceptive speech when the person gains access or employment “with the intent to cause physical or economic harm or other injury” to the agricultural production facility. On remand, the lower court held that amounted to “viewpoint-based” discrimination, and was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
“We respectfully disagree,” the Eighth Circuit panel said in its decision Monday, “and therefore reverse.”
The second decision, written by U.S. District Judge Steven Colloton, a George W. Bush appointee, said Iowa’s statute is consistent with the First Amendment.
“If a person uses deception to gain employment with intent to harm a facility, the offender would be liable for deceptively praising the facility (“I love the work you do, and I want to support it!”) or deceptively criticizing the facility (“This facility is poorly managed, and I will help increase profits.”),” Colloton wrote. “The statute does not prefer laudatory lies over critical falsehoods.”
The third member of the two panels that issued Monday’s rulings was U.S. Circuit Judge Jonathan Kobes, a Donald Trump appointee.
David Muraskin, litigation director of the Washington, D.C..-Based FarmSTAND.Org. and lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the trespass case, told Courthouse News on Monday that while the appellate court in the trespassing case found the statute was not unconstitutional on its face, it left open the question on remand to the trial court of whether it is unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiffs. “I think the court laid out a very clear path on how we could prevail,” he said. “It is not that big of a loss for our clients.”
Governor Reynolds said in a statement released Monday she was pleased by the rulings.
“This is a win for both Iowans and the country," the governor said. "Iowa farmers feed and fuel the world and are an essential part of the global food supply chain. No longer will people be able to gain access or employment to agricultural production facilities with the intent to cause physical injury or economic harm. We will always stand up for the security and safety of our farmers and their land.”
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