California Rancher’s Animal Cruelty Trial Ends
The trial of a California rancher accused of “large-scale animal cruelty” has ended.
Raymond Frank Christie, 56, Arcata, CA, was found not guilty on three counts of dumping carcasses and convicted him on 25 counts. However, the jury deadlocked on four counts of animal cruelty and 10 misdemeanor counts of dumping cattle carcasses within 150 feet of state waters.
Christie was arrested in March 2018 after a five-month investigation into what authorities said was “large-scale animal cruelty.” Sheriff’s deputies served search warrants on Christie’s properties in Humboldt County and said nearly 300 cows were found stacked in 10-foot high piles. Surviving cows were found malnourished in small corrals. Arcata is on the coast 280 miles north of San Francisco.
According to a report in the Lost Coast Outpost, the jury was hopelessly deadlocked with one juror refusing to vote for a conviction. “She didn’t feel like there was enough evidence,” the jury foreman, who asked not to be named, said outside the courtroom.
During the trial, jurors heard testimony from numerous officers who participated in the March 2018 raid on several of Christie’s properties throughout the county, according to the Lost Coast Outpost. Jurors saw seemingly endless photographs of cattle carcasses, some lying in sloughs or near sloughs, some on the banks of the Mad River.
One of the more-disturbing displays was of two nearly dead, emaciated cows who apparently were in the final stages of starvation. A state veterinarian testified that up to 90 percent of the herd on that property were “very thin to dying.”
As to the three “not guilty” verdicts of carcass-dumping, the foreman said photographs of those carcasses depicted “one or two bones.” He said, “It was not beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The District Attorney will determine if Christie will be retried on charges which the jury could not reach a unanimous decision.
Related stories:
"Large-Scale Animal Cruelty" At California Ranch
