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'It's our problem'

Hinkle and Cook, lawyer Jack Warmack argued, were doing the dirty work that others couldn't face: giving peaceful deaths to the legions of animals that North Carolina residents abandon each year.

"We're to blame," Warmack said. "It's our problem."

Three defense lawyers said PETA had made no secret of its plans for the animals. On several occasions, the lawyers said, shelter employees watched Hinkle give animals injections.

The defense team said local residents lied about their beliefs that PETA was finding homes for animals, for fear of public outrage.

"Everybody knew," Washington lawyer Blair Brown told jurors. "PETA kills animals."

The idea that homes could have been found for the animals, the lawyers argued, was silly. The animals came from a shelter where disease was rampant. Some were aggressive. Even for healthy animals, there aren't enough homes, the defense lawyers said.

PETA began sending workers to the Bertie County animal shelter in 2000, when a police officer called the group to complain about shelter conditions.

A dog-eat-cat shelter

Jurors saw photos Friday of the shelter at that time. The enclosure had no roof, and dogs floated in flooded cages. Another dog feasted on a dead cat.

Over the years, PETA workers picked up animals with infected gashes, tumors, even bullet wounds that were left untreated, defense lawyers said, showing graphic pictures.

The lawyers said PETA agreed to take animals to save them from terrifying deaths in gas chambers. The animals were killed instead with shots of sodium pentobarbital, which most vets use.

The defense also argued that law enforcement officials were more concerned with making a dramatic arrest involving a controversial group than with protecting animals.

After the verdict was announced late Friday, PETA officials said they would return to their work, trying to protect animals in northeastern North Carolina. They said they would even be willing to take over euthanizations again.

Daphna Nachminovitch of PETA said that Hinkle and Cook should not have thrown animals in the Dumpster but that their intentions were good.

Of the cruelty charges, Nachminovitch said, "All along, it was nothing but a big, big, sad mistake."

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