January 29, 2007 | At last, we've reached the long-awaited day when the prosecution rests and PETA's defense lawyers get to steer the judicial ship for a while. And in between, we saw a flurry of legal motions that appeared—just for a moment—like they might torpedo the case against PETA employees Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook.

Shortly after lunch, with the jury outside the courtroom, defense lawyers asked the judge to dismiss all the charges. The felony animal-cruelty, they argued, required the State to prove the two PETA employees acted out of hatred, spite, or malice.

Apparently, lying to a veterinarian's employees and a county Animal Control officer (who works for the sheriff, by the way) in order to get your hands on a few dozen defenseless animals—knowing full well that you would kill them a few minutes later with the drugs and needles you packed for the occasion—isn't malicious.

We stand corrected. Since Hinkle and Cook apparently stroked the animals' fur and sang kumbayah while they administered lethal doses of drugs to healthy, adoptable puppies and kittens, it's not malicious. It's "ethical."

The judge reserved his ruling on the defense motions until after the defense presents its case. Sitting in the courtroom, we get the distinct impression that the jury won't let PETA off the hook, but the judge just might. With a swing of his gavel, Judge Cy Grant could conceivably dismiss any or all of the charges before a jury ever deliberates on them. There's an outside chance. Don't say we didn't warn you.

All Creatures Great and Small

The prosecution's last three witnesses were all connected to the Ahoskie Animal Hospital , which gave Hinkle and Cook a cat and two kittens that were later recovered, dead, in their PETA-owned van. First was Dr. Patrick Proctor, who owns the veterinary practice. In his testimony, Proctor revealed that his wife had named the mother cat. The animal's name was "Jet."

District Attorney Valerie Asbell asked Proctor to describe the relationship he had with PETA before the ugliness (and arrests) of June 15, 2005:

"Prior to June 15 of ‘05, we would—on those times where we would get animals in, where we felt they were adoptable animals—we would call PETA and ask them to come pick the animals up. And we were anticipating that they would take those animals and try to find homes for them."

And later:

"Asbell: "Did you ever make any agreement with this defendant or any other PETA employees, for them to euthanize your animals?"

Proctor: "That was never part of the agreement. The agreement was to try to find homes for these animals." "

Dr. Proctor, like all veterinarians, has occasion from time to time to euthanize animals himself. In fact, the animal shelter in Hertford County (where Ahoskie is located) arranged with Proctor to visit a few times each month and "put down" animals that were too sick or too old to be adopted out. And to complicate matters, PETA has been paying his bills for this. As Proctor wept through his description of ending an animal's life, it was hard not to think of the nonchalance with which Hinkle carried out the same task.

"Nobody likes having to put an animal to sleep," Proctor told the jury. "It's a sad situation. I've had staff members cry."

But there was a big difference, Proctor argued, between euthanizing animals that had no chance in life and killing those whose future looked rosy. He believed—apparently mistakenly—that PETA was capable of telling the difference as well.

You could hardly blame him, though. Proctor testified that a female PETA employee had once assured him personally that the organization was adopting his animals out. And there was a time in 2003 when PETA brought an injured cat to his office. "They brought an animal in to me to put to sleep," he said, "that was injured, and was found by the side of the road." In this case, he told the jury, PETA employees signed legal forms giving him authorization to euthanize the animal.

We learned later that neither he nor anyone on his staff ever signed a similar form when animals were given to PETA for adoption. The form, copies of which were found in PETA's van, is titled "North Carolina Surrendered Animal." Proctor testified that neither he nor anyone in his office has ever signed one. And nobody at PETA—including Hinkle and Cook—ever brought one to his office.

Asbell : "If anybody at PETA had given you a form stating that you would allow them to immediately euthanize an animal, would you have kept that?"

Proctor : "We would have sent them back out the door with no animals."

Under cross examination, PETA defense lawyer Blair Brown needled Proctor over his decision to transition the cats out of his office and into PETA's care. But Proctor stood his ground:

Brown : "You told the staff that, essentially, that those cats had to go."

Proctor : "I told Reesie [Teresa Ray] that it was time for us to go ahead and move them, so you can go ahead and call PETA, and the idea here was to try to find homes for these cats."

Brown : "You wanted them out of the office, correct?"

Proctor : "I do not want to keep a lot of stray animals in my office. But that doesn't mean I want ‘em dead."

Brown : "That wasn't my question."

Proctor : "I understand."

Brown : "The staff had attempted to adopt these animals out for several weeks, is that correct?"

Proctor : "And we had succeeded in finding homes for three of five kittens, and the mother cat could have moved into my house … we thought we had an organization that was helping us to try to find homes for them … That was the goal, not to have that [euthanasia] happen. We had been told by PETA that, yes, they would try to find homes for them."

Brown also made a big deal over the fact that Dr. Proctor decided to keep these cats in the section of his animal hospital usually reserved for dogs. Since some diseases affect dogs but not cats (and vice-versa), this was a common practice to keep healthy animals healthy.

Brown : "Wouldn't it be stressful for cats to be in the dog ward?"

Proctor : "It would be more stressful to be outside, not being taken care of."

Brown : "I understand. Would it be stressful for the cats to be with the puppies?"

Proctor : "They seemed to be adjusting very well."

Later, on "re-direct," District Attorney Asbell put this issue of animal stress in its proper context:

Asbell : "Let me ask you this, Dr. Proctor. Do you think it would be stressful for a cat and two kittens if they were being killed in a van, going down the road?"

Proctor : "That would probably be the ultimate stress … Being pulled out and, you know, euthanized for no particular reason at all, that's got to be the ultimate stress, whether it's for a person, or an animal, or whatever."

It All Comes Down to Punching a Clock

The most bizarre episode of the day surrounded a time sheet for Ashton Sumner, one of Proctor's employees who was working the day Hinkle and Cook came knocking.

Defense lawyers claim that their clients visited the Ahoskie Animal Hospital twice on that day: Once to drop off a sick dog, and a second time to pick up the cats. But no witnesses so far remember it that way.

Ashton Sumner remembers seeing Hinkle that day. Witnesses generally agree that Hinkle picked up the cats shortly after 2:00. But Proctor's employee records—subpoenaed by the defense—indicate that Sumner finished work that day at the 1:00 lunch break. If she never came back, the defense believes, she must have seen Hinkle and Cook earlier in the day.

The culprit? Computer payroll software that doesn't let employees fix their mistakes if they forget to clock back in after lunch. Seriously. Bear with us.

Employees at the Ahoskie Animal Hospital, Sumner testified today, are allowed to "add an hour" back on their time sheets at the end of a pay period if they forget to tell the computer that they're back from lunch. And Sumner—a distracted college student who worked part-time—was someone who occasionally forgot.

This morning Proctor brought the corrected records to court with him. Pulled from Sumner's personnel file—not the computer program—they showed that she "added an hour" to account for her time at work after lunch on June 15, 2005.

Defense lawyer Blair Brown was not a happy camper. Calling the computer glitch a "supposed error," he hemmed and hawed and stopped just short of accusing Proctor of tampering with evidence.

At one point, Brown dramatically produced the subpoena demanding "all documents" relating to his personnel on June 15. Sheepishly, Proctor conceded that he had never dealt with this kind of subpoena before and apologized: "I thought we had sent you everything that we had."

The State Rests

In addition to Sumner herself, the final prosecution witness was veterinary technician Tonya Northcott—the employee who handed the cat and two kittens to Adria Hinkle. Northcott's recollection of June 15, 2005 was very similar to other accounts we've heard, right down to Hinkle asking if the cats had names, and her reassurance that PETA would have no problem finding them good homes.

Here's her entire statement about what happened. Since she was just a few feet away from Hinkle, we thought you should hear it all in her own words:

"I saw Adria enter the building, and I knew that they were coming that day to pick up the momma cat the two kittens. And when I saw her walk in the door, I said ‘Oh, you must be here for the cat and two two kittens.' And she said ‘yes, I am.'

"And she had the cat carrier in her hand. And I got the cat carrier from her, I went to the back of the hospital and got the cat and two kittens, put them in the carrier, and I came back to the corridor. And as I was walking to the front, and approaching Adria, I had the cat carrier in my hand, and I was holding it up at face level, for me and for her to look at.

"And at first when she did, she said ‘Oh! Look at the kittens! They're so adorable! They're so pretty!' And I said, ‘yep, they've been socialized, we've had them here for awhile now, they've been wormed, we've been playing with them, and I really hope that you can find good homes for them.'

"And as I held that carrier up where we could all see them, she said ‘Oh, I shouldn't have any problem finding homes for these kittens. Do they have names?'"

Perhaps the most stunning moment of Northcott's testimony, though, came a few moments later, when she said that a PETA employee named "Annie" had assured her that every animal PETA took in would be seen by a veterinarian. And no animals would be euthanized until PETA had tried to place them in a home for at least two weeks.

Asked by D.A. Asbell what she would have done if she knew the cats would be immediately killed, Northcott replied: "I would never have handed them any animal if I had known that's what they were going to do." And after the lunch recess, she assured jurors that she had no idea the kittens would be killed "that day" and "as soon as they left the premises."

That Was Then, This Is Now

After legal wrangling over the defense motion to dismiss all charges, PETA lawyer Jack Warmack began presenting his client's case. But it didn't turn out quite the way he intended.

The defense called Susan Belch, a former police officer who volunteered at the Bertie County animal shelter for a few months in 2000. Belch has since left law enforcement (she's now a full-time truck driver), and she testified that she hasn't been back to the animal shelter since the summer of 2000.

Belch testified for an hour—aided by projected enlargements of her own snapshots—about the deplorable conditions in the shelter more than six years ago. To be fair, it was truly disgusting. We heard about dead animals, unsanitary conditions, and blood left behind when an officer decided to dispatch an unruly dog with his sidearm.

But in less than 15 minutes, the prosecution snapped jurors back to reality with a reminder that the shelter was completely transformed between 2000 and 2005. Shown pictures of the shelter as it was just 19 months ago, however, Belch could hardly believe her eyes.

"I almost didn't recognize it," she told the jury. "It looks a lot better."

Again, to be fair, it appears that much of the renovation happened at PETA's direction. But how ironic: Despite making the Bertie County animal shelter more livable, PETA still slated its inhabitants for a premature death.

In the end, Belch made a nifty prosecution witness. She testified that when she first called PETA—back in 2000—to help clean up the shelter, the animal-rights group was full of promises:

"They led me to believe that they were going to improve things—which it looks like they did—and then try to find the animals homes [which they didn't] ... They would take them back and try to have them adopted out ... Euthanization was, like, a last resort."