Voluntary Prosecution and the Case of Animal Rescue

There has rightly been enormous attention to the defects of our prosecutorial system, from racial bias and over-criminalization, to mass incarceration and procedural unfairness. Scholars have criticized as ineffectual and regressive the efforts to send moral messages through crime and punishment. To date, however, no scholarship has seriously considered the potential for social movements to harness an overzealous prosecutorial system to create progressive change. The prosecution of animal activists provides a timely and salient example of the way that criminal trials can provide a platform for legal social and legal reform. This talk will highlight some of the intentional efforts by activists both in and out of the animal protection field to invite prosecutions, and illustrate how the act of inducing a criminal trial might be an important tool of social change. Thank you to the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy for their generous support of this lecture series.