Anti-Cruelty

Summary:

Jane Smith was charged with 47 counts of animal cruelty after 47 dogs and other animals were seized from her property where she operated a private dog rescue. Smith was ultimately sentenced to jail time and required to compensate the Humane Society for the money that was spent to care for the 47 dogs that were seized from Smith’s property. Smith appealed her sentence, arguing that the lower court had made five errors in coming to its decision. The Court of Appeals only addressed four of the five arguments made by Smith. First, the Smith argued that the court erred in not suppressing evidence on the basis that her 4th Amendment rights had been violated. The Court of Appeals dismissed this argument, holding that Smith’s 4th Amendment rights had not been violated because the information that led to the seizure of Smith’s dogs was provided by a private citizen and therefore not applicable to the 4th Amendment protections. Secondly, Smith argued that the court violated her due process rights when it made multiple, erroneous evidentiary rulings that deprived her of her ability to meaningfully defend herself at trial. The Court of Appeals found that Smith had not provided enough evidence to establish that her due process rights had been violated, so the Court of Appeals dismissed the argument. Thirdly, Smith made a number of arguments related to constitutional violations but the Court of Appeals found that there was not evidence to support these arguments and dismissed the claim. Lastly, Smith argued that she had made a pre-indictment, non-prosecution agreement that was not followed by the court. The Court of Appeals also dismissed this argument for a lack of evidence. Ultimately, the Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision and sentencing. 

Summary: This statute (operative on January 1, 2018) prohibits a person who houses, possesses, manages, or is in direct contact with an elephant from using a billhook, ankus, baseball bat, axe handle, pitchfork, and other devices that inflict pain for the purpose of training or controlling the elephant. Any person caught in violation of this statute will be subject to civil penalty and a suspension or revocation of his or her license to lawfully possess the animal.

Summary:

San Antonio Animal Care Services (ACS) responded to a call about 36 pit bull terriers that were chained, significantly underweight, and dehydrated. The dogs also had scarring consistent with fighting. Police obtained a search warrant and coordinated with ACS to seize the dogs. While the dogs were being secured, Appellant Terrence Mouton arrived at the residence. He told the officers that he had been living at the residence for a couple of weeks, but that he did not own all of the dogs and was holding them for someone else. Mouton was convicted in the County Court of cruelty to non livestock animals. On appeal, Mouton argued that the trial court erred in denying his motion for directed verdict because the Appellee, the State of Texas, failed to prove that the animals were in his custody. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s judgment. The court held that there was sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that Mouton was responsible for the health, safety, and welfare of the dogs on his property and that the dogs were subject to his care and control, regardless of whether he was the actual owner of each animal. A reasonable jury could have also found that Mouton was “aware of, but consciously disregarded, a substantial and unjustifiable risk” that he failed to provide proper nutrition, water, or shelter for the dogs.

Summary: This new law effective on January 1, 2017 requires the annual report published by the Department of Justice to include information concerning arrests for violations of Section 597 (the cruelty to animals provision).

Summary: In the United States, violent use of “bullhooks”—sharpened, steel-tipped rods—on captive elephants at carnivals, circuses, and zoos is all too routine. Yet animal-welfare advocates struggle to protect elephants from the (mis)use of bullhooks under the current regulatory regime. At the federal level, advocates cannot consistently rely on either the Animal Welfare Act or the Endangered Species Act, due to these statutes’ narrow provisions, standing limitations, and inconsistent enforcement. State animal-protection laws are equally deficient, as only two states have defined suffering and abuse clearly enough in their statutes to enable effective prosecution of elephant mistreatment, and plaintiffs in even these states frequently fail for lack of standing. Ultimately, the most effective solution to the problem of bullhooks may lie with local lawmaking authorities. Many counties and municipalities have begun to protect captive elephants by enacting ordinances that expressly ban these devices within their jurisdictions. These local laws, which are growing increasingly popular, could offer the most effective protections against elephant abuse to date.

Summary: Twenty years after the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, uncertainty reigns in the lower courts and among commentators over the issue of constitutionally compelled religious exemptions. Despite the Court’s general disavowal of such exemptions in Employment Division v. Smith, Lukumi appeared to breathe life into a potentially significant exception to Smith. Under that exception—which this Article calls the “selective-exemption rule”—the Free Exercise Clause may still require religious exemptions from a law when the government selectively makes available other exemptions from that law. This Article addresses the key unresolved questions about the scope of the selective-exemption rule and challenges the broad interpretation of the rule that leading religious-liberty advocates have been pressing in courts around the country. That broad interpretation, which played a prominent role in the recent animal-sacrifice case of Merced v. Kasson and has been further developed in the ongoing Stormans, Inc. v. Selecky litigation over emergency contraception, would go a long way to achieving a de facto reversal of Smith. But while there are credible arguments for reconsidering Smith and its “equal protection” interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause, those arguments should not be advanced through the backdoor of the selective-exemption rule. That rule was adopted as part of the Smith paradigm, and it only makes sense to interpret it within that paradigm. Accordingly, this Article makes the case for a more appropriately tailored reading of the selective-exemption rule—a reading grounded in the rule’s origins as a tool to prevent intentional discrimination, and a reading that would enable the government to enforce animal welfare laws that have only an incidental effect of limiting religious animal sacrifice.

Summary: As society has come to recognize the sentience and intelligence of nonhuman animals, jurisdictions across the United States (U.S.) have promulgated animal protection laws. Despite the development of anti-cruelty statutes, though, states with sentence enhancement mechanisms continue to elevate criminal offenders’ sentences only if they injure human victims. This Note considers the development of anti-cruelty laws and explores how sentencing guidelines, victim injury points, and other sentence enhancement mechanisms function in U.S. criminal justice systems. It examines how multiple states treat victim injury, focusing particularly on Florida where, in October 2011, a Florida Assistant State Attorney—in what was likely the first attempt of its kind—sought to score victim injury points against an offender who brutally stabbed a dog. By looking at legislative intent, and other persuasive authority, this Note argues that courts can and should enhance the sentences of offenders who victimize animals. It contends that legislatures should clear up any statutory ambiguity by making it explicitly clear that the criminal justice system should treat animals as victims. Using history and current trends for support, this Note argues that we should award the same number of victim injury points for animals as people. It also looks at several other facets of practical application, such as which animals would qualify as victims for the purpose of victim injury points and how we can make animal victims and victim injury points a priority in the criminal justice system.

Summary: This Selected Annotated Bibliography assembles legal and social literature that examines the link between domestic violence and animal abuse. Drawing from an ever-growing body of written works dedicated to the issue, the Bibliography presents the works that are most informative and useful to the legal community. These include case studies, current and proposed legislation, and social services guides that address the occurrence of and response to the animal cruelty-family violence correlation. In doing so, the Bibliography creates a resource that will prove helpful to a variety of legal practitioners, law makers, and professionals within the criminal justice system, and will serve as a tool to promote further understanding of the patterns of abuse that often concurrently victimize both humans and animals.

Summary:

Cases involving cruelty to animals are currently handled by the traditional criminal courts. These courts, however, are not effective at punishing animal abusers or protecting animal victims. Although all states have laws criminalizing various forms of animal cruelty, the reality is that most cruelty cases are not prosecuted; even when cruelty cases are successfully prosecuted, punishments are weak. This Comment proposes the creation of an Animal Violence Court, using juvenile animal abusers and adult hoarders as ideal candidates for a pilot animal cruelty justice system. The Animal Violence Court will provide for the ongoing safety and care of animal victims, will work to rehabilitate offenders, and will require long-term monitoring of offenders by the court. Modeled after similar problemsolving courts, the Animal Violence Court will improve upon the current criminal justice system, rehabilitate offenders, and protect innocent animals, sending a clear message that animal abuse will not be tolerated.

Summary:

A national animal abuser registry has the potential to provide law enforcement agencies with a much-needed tool for tracking animal abusers, but no such registry exists. This Comment first discusses existing state and federal criminal registries for sex offenders, child abusers, and elder abusers. It determines that existing criminal registries often contain inaccurate entries and that they have little deterrent effect, making their potential infringement on offenders’ Constitutional rights and other collateral consequences difficult to justify.  

This Comment then turns to the viability of a national animal abuse registry, discussing the link between the abuse of animals and violence towards other humans. Although no state or national animal abuse registries currently exist, several states have tried to pass legislation that would create such registries. In the absence of state-run registries, independent animal interest groups have formed registries of their own. This Comment explores the inherent drawbacks of volunteer-run, financially unaccountable organizations promulgating information about animal abusers. It then concludes that government funding and staffing could fix the accountability gaps that exist with the registries developed by private organizations and proposes a framework for a national animal abuse registry.