Animal cruelty a felony?

Great Debates
21

This is more an IMHO than a debate answer, but I want to throw it out nonetheless.

I’m in favor of making animal cruelty a high level misdemeanor for first and second offenses, say up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine, with that as a mandatory for a second offense.

If, after two convictions, some stumblebum still feels compelled to torture animals, then absolutely kick it up to a felony level.

We currently, in Arizona at least, have this kind of approach for shoplifting. The first offense is a misdemeanor. A second offense in three years is a felony. If we can take that kind of stance to help WalMart cut its losses on pilfered pairs of $15 sunglasses, we can certainly do it for this issue as well.

22

It would be interesting to see a scientific study on the possible link between animal cruelty and violent crimes against people. I have not seen such a study, but surely someone has investigated this. In the meantime, here are a few things to ponder:

Micheal Cartier pulled a rabbit’s legs out of its sockets when he was four years old and threw a kitten through a closed window. When he was older, he shot Kristin Lardner three times in the head and she died.

Henry Lee Lucas killed animals and had sex with their corpses. Later, he killed his mother, his common law wife and an unknown number of people

Edward Kemper cut up two cats, killed his grandparents, his mother, and seven other women .

Theodore Robert Bundy witnessed animal cruelty by his grandfather and later killed thirty-three women.

Jeffrey Dahmer participated in the deliberate killings of animals by car. He murdered 17 men.

Richard Allen Davis set “cat fires” and went on to murder Polly Klaas, age 12.

Richard Speck threw a bird into a ventilator fan. He killed eight women.

Randy Roth taped a cat to a car’s engine and used an industrial sander on a frog. He also killed two of his wives and attempted to kill a third.

David Richard Davis shot and killed two healthy ponies, threw a wine bottle at a pair of kittens, hunted with illegal methods. He murdered his wife, Shannon Mohr Davis, for insurance money.

Peter Kurten (The Dusseldorf Monster) tortured dogs, and practiced bestiality while killing the animal. He murdered or attempted to murder over 50 men, women, and children.

Albert De Salvo (The Boston Strangler) would place a dog and a cat in a crate with a partition between them. After starving the animals for several days, he would remove the partition and watch them kill each other. He also raped and killed nine women by strangulation. He would often pose the bodies in a shocking manner after death.

Richard Trenton Davis (The Vampire Killer) bit the heads off birds, drained animals for their blood, killed animals for their organs. He also killed six people in random attacks. One police officer who was at the scene of the first murder confessed to having nightmares about the crime for months afterwards.

Luke Woodham set fire to his own dog, Sparkles. He poured accelerant down her throat and set fire to her neck both inside and outside. He later went on a shooting spree which killed two girls ages 16 and 17 after stabbing his mother to death.

Richard William Leonard’s grandmother forced him to kill and multilate cats and kittens when he was a child. He also killed Stephen Dempsey with a bow and arrow. And he killed Ezzedine Bahmad by slashing his throat.

Tom Dillion Randomly shot people’s pets Shot and killed five men:
Jamie Paxton, 21
Claude Hawkins, 49
Donald Welling, 35
Kevin Loring, 30
Gary Bradely, 44

At the age of nine, Eric Smith strangled a neighbor’s cat, Smith also bludgeoned Derrick Robie (age 4) to death. Smith lured the little boy into the woods, choked him, sodomized him with a stick, then beat him to death with a rock.

When Jack Bassenti’s dog had puppies, he buried all but one of them alive. He raped and murdered three women

David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) poisoned his mother’s parakeet out of jealousy and shot thirteen young men and women.
Six people died and at least two suffered permanent disabilities.

Arthur Shawcross Repeatedly threw a kitten into a lake until the kitten drowned from exhaustion. killed a young girl then…after serving 15 and 1/2 years in prison, killed 11 more women.

Michael Perry decapitated a neighbor’s dog. He also killed his parents, his infant nephew, and two neighbors.

Jason Massey killed cats, dogs, and cows. He also killed his thirteen year old stepsister and a fourteen year old boy.

Patrick Sherrill stole neighborhood pets and encouraged his dog to attack them. He killed 14 people at his workplace.

Keith Hunter Jesperson (The Happy Face Killer) strangled a cat in an ongoing pattern of animal abuse condoned by his father. He confessed to killing eight women.

Joel Steinburg refused medical treatment his adopted daughter Lisa’s pet rabbit when it broke its leg. He killed his adopted 6 year old daughter. Lisa had also suffered from extensive bruises all over her body. Her hygiene was very poor, and Steinburg was seen tossing Lisa into the Atlantic surf at the beach.

Christine Falling tortured and killed cats to see if they really had nine lives. She murdered five children and one elderly man by the age of nineteen.

Rod Ferrel was the leader of a gang of teen “vampires”. In October of 1996, broke into an animal shelter, beat dogs, and multilated puppies. Before that, he had been torturing and killing cats and dogs from the age of nine to the age of sixteen. At the age of sixteen, he bludgeoned an elderly couple, parents of another gang member, to death. He is now on death row.

23

To carry this a little bit further, I’d like to inject the layman difference between “murder” (illegal) and “homocide” (legal in some situations).

If you actually distinguish between “murder” and “homocide” the only difference is a matter of sensibility. It’s against our social sensibilites to take a life without a valid reason, but when a valid reason applies (self-defense almost universally, the death penalty for a percentage of the society, etc.) our sensibilities aren’t offended, and no crime exists even though the act is the same.

24

Philosophocles:

In response to your post, you might want to check out the books by John Douglas, one of the founders of the FBI Behavioral Science unit. He makes frequent reference to childhood animal cruelty as a common element among serial killers.

I can’t reall, but I believe he may cite some studies in his first book.

25

spoke-, you might be interested in reading more about the Pasado Law that was enacted in my hometown’s state following the death of the donkey I mentioned above. According to this article, it:

This is one example of animal cruelty legislation that exempts most farm practices from being prosecuted.

The Ryan, getting flicked off offends my sensibilities. Seeing pot-bellied people in Spandex offends my sensibilites. Hell, Barry Manilow’s entire career offends my sensibilities. The abuse, torture and needless killing of animals? Beyond the pale. Absolutely. My viewpoint on this may not coincide with many others, but I refuse to subscribe to the notion that humans have no obligation to value anything but themselves. Leaving aside farm animals for the time being, any animal that is abused by a human allowed that human to approach it out of trust. Pasado the donkey, cats, dogs, mice, and what-have-you are raised in a specific relationship with humans. That relartionship is based on trust & protection. To violate that trust and to do so with such deliberate malice is inhumane.

Animals experience pain, therefore I cannot in good conscience support legislation that treats them merely as property; while they may not think in rational, self-aware terms, they feel pain and pleasure and that fact alone should allow them to transcend the status of mere property.

26

Someone mentioned the law in Texas. The text should appear here http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/tlo/textframe.cmd?LEG=77&SESS=R&CHAMBER=H&BILLTYPE=B&BILLSUFFIX=00653&VERSION=5&TYPE=B

Notice how it suggest different offense levels for different actions and how prior offenses can be used to enhance punishments. For all of you who thought such things are good ideas it might be time to consider becoming legislators.

27

I’m definitely not a THGRSDFHPBHL.
I am glad however that in this country at least animal cruelty is treated as what you would call a felony. It carries the potential of jail time and some very serious crimes. Unfortunately it is very rarely treated seriously enough.

The main point I would like to bring up is the assumption people seem to be making that killing an animal and cruelty to an animal are one and the same if the animal isn’t being used to make a product. Is this actually the case in parts of the US? Here at least I can legitimately shoot my dog, hit my goldfish over the head and even poison rats. None of those animals is going to be processed (I hope). However if I were to leave the fish to die in the sun, skin my dog for art or [wierd Al] spend my days in the basement torturing rats with a hacksaw[/wierd Al] I would be charged with animals cruelty and in the latter two cases likely serve jail time if it wasn’t a first offence. Here animal cruelty only applies if pain is inflicted on the animal unnecessarily, so painless methods of death or justifiable pain such as rat poison, are legal (and rightly so IMHO). Animal torture isn’t a specific crime, but isn’t torture just extreme pain inflicted deliberately and as such covered under cruelty? Some of the previous posts have made me wonder exactly what we’re talking about when we say animal cruelty.

I would like to spend one paragraph taking up the cudgel for The Ryan. While I don’t agree that offending someone’s sensibilities is insufficient grounds for legislation, I will point out that murder is not, IMHO, simply a crime because it offends our sensibilities as implied by Andros and nen. I would argue that murder is a crime at least in part because it removes potentially valuable people from society. We have invested time and resources in educating and providing health care for these people and removing them prematurely costs money. Added to his murder of people usually causes grief which in turns has a negative impact on society. Without resorting to sensibility and morality arguments you can’t be allowed to murder my mother any more than you can be allowed to steal my furniture because it deprives me of my investment of time, money and emotion.

Having said that I will agree The Ryan’s reasoning seems flawed. In this country we have laws telling people what colour they can paint heritage listed buildings, laws telling us that we can’t appear naked in public, laws saying you can’t masturbate in the frozen foods section of the supermarket and laws against the use of offensive language. None of these laws has any reasonable basis that I can see beyond the desire to limit offense, so it seems a desire not to offend sensibilities is a legitimate reason to criminalise something. The depth of offense taken should be reasonable grounds for determining the severity of the punishment.

The legislation linked to by liebfels looks good to me, it’s actually vaery similar to the Queensland legislation. though I do have a couple of problems with it.

The section reading ““Animal” does not include an uncaptured wild creature or a wild creature whose capture was accomplished by conduct at issue under this section.” Correct me if I’m wrong but this seems to imply that I can catch deer by lighting grassfires to burn them alive, shoot them in the spine and leave them to die etc. While I can see the reason for excluding vermin and game species it would be nice to see a passage in there about taking all reasonable means to ensure that an animal doesn’t suffer unnecessarily and only using traps, poisons and what are likely to be non-instantaneous means of death where no effective alternatives exist.

I also wonder about the logic behind allowing me to kill my neighbours goat without consent or lawful reason. Is this so I can still have a sacrifice for my black masses? Is this some satanist plot? Are all animals going to have 666 tatooed on their rump? :eek:

28

Yes, in Douglas’ book Mindhunter, he makes the claim that ALL serial killers that he had interviewed tortured animals as children. The contrary (all animal abusers will become serial killers), is not true however.

Aside from this, I don’t believe it is merely a matter of offending peoples’ sensibilities that is the issue. It is one of common human decency.

29

Gaspode, I’m wondering a bit about the definition of animal as well. At first I thought they were trying to exclude hunting, but I see that they’ve written in a section explicitly exempting hunting from the offense.

30

the ryan, though I don’t agree with your reasoning, I do agree with the sentiment; I don’t see a reason why we should make animal cruelty a felony. I think it is absurd, actually. Maybe a misdemeanor, but even then I’m a little shakey.

Unless the animal belonged to someone else or was a protected species under some other law due to conservation efforts, it just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. Its a fucking animal. We eat them. We run them over with our cars. We cut down their forests and build houses, we pave over their burrows.

Being cruel to an animal is a bad thing, I agree. I hate people that do it. Seeing some neglected animals (vets have some horror stories :() have brought me close to tears. But for Eris’s sake, they’re just animals. Hell, we do worse stuff to people with no charges brought down.

Though the argument from offended sensabilities seems to win the day, is it possible to provide any other reason? Not that that won’t suit me, I suppose, but it will never sit well.

And if we start including non-mammals as “animals” then there’s a Hoover Dam of bullshit ready to break.

31

How about this, erl (and be nice–I stuck up for you in that pedophile thread :wink: ). It might be seen as a variation on the “offended sensibilities” idea, but I think it’s more of an illumination and an expansion.

As this thread has noted, animal cruelty laws do not, in general, apply to animals intended for food or for exploitation for other products. (I’m not sure if they apply to draft animals.) They tend to be limited to pets and domesticated animals, sometimes to feral animals, and to wanton acts of torture towards feed animals.

Part of the reasoning behind them is that the kinds of animals to which they apply, in our culture, are companion animals. Humans took an active role in directing the development of these animals. We domesticated them and selectively bred them for certain pleasing traits. As such, having taken that role in their existence, we have a moral responsibility towards them. Arguably not the same moral responsibility we have towards other humans, but it exists nonetheless. A component of that moral responsibility is that we do not intentionally cause suffering or harm to these creatures unnecessarily. It’s a violation of the responsibility we took on when we domesticated them.

I don’t think anybody is suggesting that a single act of animal cruelty be a felony, either. Certainly not a single instance of negligence or unintentional harm. But repeated instances of intentional cruelty should be a felony, just as repeated acts of (almost) any crime should be a felony. And, IMNSHO, single instances of cruelty that involve wanton torture, injury or death should be felonies as well.

32

Now that’s an argument I can live with… almost.
You have certainly convinced me it should be a crime, but definitely not a felony. Becoming a felon damages one’s social opportunities a lot, and such a strict sentence for a crime is still, IMNSHO (heh), unwarranted.

Killing animals does not, IMO, show that the person is a threat to the state, or to the public at large, and so I see-- as of yet-- no cause for a felony charge.

In fact…your argument has gotten me thinking about how cruel we are to the prey of our–for example-- cats. Domestic house cats who are permitted to roam outside are the ultimate predator. They have wonderful protection from disease thanks to us, they have no fear of starvation thanks to us, they have no fear of the elements thanks to us… in short, we’ve provided them with protection from all the things that would normally kill them and balance out the struggle for survival. I remember reading several studies on bird populations in suburban areas due to excessive pet-killings. Isn’t this the moral equivalent of torture? These poor birds don’t have a fighting chance!

33

What about snake owners? Should they be required by law to feed their snakes pre-killed prey? Some snakes will eat only live animals.

34

erislover, the reasoning of your arguments eludes me. You say that those who torture animals are not a danger to society despite a proven correlation between such acts and serial murder (not that I’m saying that all people who torture animals will turn out to be serial murderers, but the converse is generally true). What greater risk does one person pose to society than that in being a serial murderer?

You say being a felon diminishes one’s oppurtunities in life. No kidding. But, not becoming a felon is really not that hard a thing to do.

You then go on to equate carnivores killing other animals and people killing animals for food with the torture of animals for fun. Cats kill birds because it is pure instinct. They don’t do it for fun and they don’t go bragging to other cats about how they made that little blue jay suffer for 4 hours before they finally got bored with it and killed it. People do not torture animals because it is instinctual. Those who do it do so out of a need to dominate and prove their power over other things. Some of these people graduate to doing the exact same things to other humans.

Animal cruelty is not and never will be a universal felony in this country. It will most often be a misdemeanor, if a charge is filed at all. The felony charges will be reserved for those who show a recurrent disposition to perform extreme, deliberate, sadistic torture upon animals. Hunters, as a rule, are not sadistic. No responsible hunter wants to shoot a deer and watch it struggle for 45 minutes. Most hunters are most satisfied when they shoot an animal and drop it instantly in its tracks with as little suffering as possible. It’s also a pain in the ass to chase a wounded deer through the brush for fifteen minutes while it runs itself out. Most slaughterhouses do not process animals while they are still alive, but instead kill the animal as quickly and efficiently as possible (I’ve helped slaughter a few dozen pigs and steers over the years and I can assure you, from the time they were latched down, they weren’t aware of anything for more than five seconds). Those that do are probably in violation of the law and need to change or enforce their procedures and policies.

It’s not about what offends our sensibilities, it’s about senseless acts of violence. It’s about inhumane activity that often feeds a desire to commit these acts on a grander and grander scale.

35

seawalk, if you say that there is only a one way correlation between animal torture and serial killers, and it only points from serial killers to animal torturers, AND admit that torturing animals does not mean you will be a serial killer, then–maybe-- that’s not the best tack to take.

The point I was alluding to with my cat example was that we are torturing the entire society of birds (and other natural prey of cats) by giving cats an unnatural advantage. A weak point, I know, but the idea here is just that we use animals however we choose all the time, without regard-- necessarily-- to how it will affect other animals.

But the idea doesn’t really matter one way or another. A felon is a person who has knowingly committed a crime against society. Killing animals does not yet show me that a person is a harm to society. I will not support such a legal measure until such time.

I just don’t see why.

36

Yes, but we do it out of necessity. We don’t do any of those things with the deliberate intent of hurting animals. At least in this country if you did do any of those things with the sole intention hurting an animals you would be charged with animal cruelty (and dangerous driving in one instance). If the legislation linked to is passed you would also be charged in some parts of the US. Intent is very important under law.

I find that hard to believe, even of the US. Here if you starved, beat, cut, exploded or ran over a person in your care you would definitely be charged. Even if it is true of where you live, does this make it a good thing?

I can’t see how, so long as the legislation is written in such a way that cruelty is acceptable so long as no viable alternative exists. I don’t think anyone would object to inflicting extreme pain on a tiger if it was the only way to stop it chewing off a man’s leg, and I don’t think anyone would object to poisoning mosquitoes to prevent the spread of malaria.

I agree with what you’re saying generally Erislover, but all legal systems are rife with rules that have no basis except to defend sensibilities. Repeated intentional indecent exposure is considered a fairly serious crime here and I suspect there, but I can’t see any logical basis beyond preserving sensibilities.

That’s actually a popular myth. Something like 99.9% of all snakes of all species will take dead prey after a little training. In Australia it is illegal to feed snakes live prey, and at least one animal park has copped a 5-figure fine for live feeding. As the law stands you can feed a newly captured snake live food for a certian period (don’t know how long) and if it refuses to take dead prey it must be released. Don’t know how they handle imports. The main point is the legislation does cover this.

37

gaspode, an example of how we are mean to people is witnessed in how we treat the homeless. In fact, it is a perfect example since we do indeed drive animals out of their homes, then burn, cut, or pave their homes. We give them no quarter, poison them if they try to find it, put fences around gardens to starve them… when exactly did keeping a few animals in our house as pets count for anything against this?

Now, of course, I don’t have much of a problem with the above. Animals are below people. So I see no reason to make animal torture a felony. Since I do find that animal torture is a little senseless I can understand it being a misdemeanor if a person is caught. But, really, I won’t lose any sleep at night over it.

Lets take a list of some things that are felonies to get some perspective here: breaking and entering; armed robbery; concealed weapon (in some states); excessive assault; and I think even running from a police officer.

I consider those, rightly, to be crimes which can or do endanger the public at large. A guy in his backyard crucifying a puppy is sick, and should probably be sent to therapy about it, but I’m not going to remove his right to vote or find a decent job over it. It is, after all, just a dog, and we let just as many of them wander the streets along with cats, and let the deer multiply to starve (in some areas due to anti-hunting protests), and cut down the trees to make million dollar homes… hey, its a tough world. But don’t tell me a suburban development of $500K homes is a necessity that means animals must be killed when we can kill far fewer by building a high rise. We kill them, or ignore them, or eat them, because we want to do something and in the end they’re just animals.

Ford Prefect: I got some foie gras.
Arthur Dent: Foie gras? Bit cruel to the geese, isn’t it?
Ford: Fuck 'em. Can’t care about every damn thing.

True 'dat.

38

Point taken Erislover. However I note that you are still confusing a crime of necessity, a crime of ommission and a deliberate offence. Clearing forests is a crime of necessity, we need to eat, make money, build houses etc. It is not a crime for the same reason homicide in war is not a crime. Not housing the homeless is a crime of ommission, we didn’t force these peoples out of thier houses, we just didn’t help them find a new one. It’s not a crime for the same reason not taking CPR lessons isn’t a crime. Leaving an animal tied up in the snow or 40o heat with no shelter is a deliberate offence. The animal is there because we forced him to be there, and we have no reason making this neccesary. That is the reason why animal cruelty is very diffrent to hunting, land clearing or not housing the homeless. There is intent and/or no justification for an act which could reasonably be known to cause pain. In none of your examples is there any intent to cause pain without justification.

39

Well, I don’t know that I’m confusing them, I’m just extracting the fact that they are all moral crimes, even if not illegal, and though I cannot think of a justification for torturing animals, I also cannot think of one for making doing so a felony.

Man, illegally transporting a firearm is worse to the rest of us than that, and its “only” a first-degree misdemeanor (at least in OH).

If I were world dictator it would be punishable with a fine not exceeding 1000, and then get on to something that might accompish something. Hey, my not-so-humble opinion. That I do feel strongly about this not being a felony probably means that within a year it will be so. My faith in the government representing me is 0.01% :smiley:

40

I have to agree with those who advocate making gross animal cruelty a felony.

In the meantime, there was a case recently in my town (Gaithersburg MD) where some A-holes (one teen, one adult) caught and cruelly killed some of the geese that frequent the ponds because they wanted to see what killing was like. IMHO, future serial killers if ever there were. Be that as it may, it’s only a misdemeanor here and they got off quite easy with a $10 fine each or something. But the judge set bail at $50,000, meaning that at least one of them had to come up with 5K to get out before trial.

I may have some of the facts incorrect because I’m citing from memory, but you get the picture. For those of you not living where gross animal cruelty is a felony, you can always petition the courts to set bail really high until the legislature gets off of its ass and acts.