I hate this but I think the judge is trying to keep the crimes seperate. The trial is not about what illegal things the farm was doing, it was a trial about this person breaking the law when they broke into the farm. I don’t know what the laws are exactly where this is but a lot of the time animals are owned which puts them in the category of property but with special protections. So the judge is looking at it from you broke into someone’s property to take video or whatever of someone treating their property poorly. I hate this because without doing this it’s incredibly hard to get evidence while going through the process legally. It’s usually setup in a way that gives ample opportunity for the offender to hide any wrong doing before inspection or other laws that hinder the animal rights people. If a police officer showed up without a warrant and walked in and collected evidence it probably couldn’t be used to prosecute them in court anyway so this is a bit like that. The judge might take the mitigating factors into consideration but the trial is still about them breaking into property illegally. The whole truth is primarily focused on the break in. Also this is pure speculation and I’m talking out of my ass, so would need someone who actually knows something to varify