Just to provide an update of sorts, the accusations against Dr. Lindsey “went viral” on April 16th, 2015.
The sheriff’s investigation results were forwarded to the Austin County District Attorney on April 20th.
In Austin County, the grand jury meets once per month.
The grand jury that convened on April 29th was not asked to consider the case of Dr. Lindsey’s killing of the cat.
The next Austin County grand jury meets May 27. At this time, Dr. Lindsey’s case is not scheduled to be presented.
request for information: do they have to present the case at some point?
If not, does that mean they don’t think it’s legally actionable (sorry if I’m using the words wrong) or just that they think it isn’t worth putting to the top of what I assume has to be a limited amount of time available to deal with cases?
If they do have to present the case, is there a time limit they have to stick with, or could this hang over the vet for ages until they eventually get around to it?
Probably doesn’t make much difference. She already lost her job, didn’t she, on account of violating Toonces’s Law (on the Internet, kitties is kitties)?
Doesn’t really matter - if Bricker is right (which on this sort of thing usually is so) she won’t get charged for anything, but I’m curious about the process anyway.
They have three years, going by my unresearched memory of Texas’ statute of limitations. But as a general rule, these cases do not improve with age. So while it’s not certain, in my experience if they don’t indict her by, say, July, it’s a pretty clear signal that they aren’t planning to indict her at all.
The decision could be based on either a lack of legally sufficient evidence or a lack of prosecutorial interest. Again, though, with the large measure of public attention this case drew, it’s unlikely, though concededly not impossible, for the decision to be based on a lack of desire to prosecute.
Thanks!
While the publicity played a part, I think she lost it because of ethics violations. At least, to me, it seems she violated rule 1 by not using a guaranteed painless method of euthanasia. I left in the parts that I think may have been violated (with client referring to a possible owner).
But wouldn’t the law differentiate between “Vet” and “Lindsay Graham”?
While a vet, operating as part of their “doctorly” duties may have certain standards to adhere to, I would argue against the same standards applying if she were to go hunting or culling strays (unless she was hired to do so because she was a vet) - such a standard doesn’t feel very appropriate
Asking because I have no idea: do these guidelines apply to patients, or all animals?
For example, if the reading you offer is correct, these guidelines prohibit any vet from being a hunter. I’d be surprised to learn that to be true, but not ultra surprised.
I know several vets that are hunters.
No, I think they can be hunters. I think the problem arises because of the possible pet status of the animal, and the claim she was killing for the same reasons that neuter and release programs exist.
But I don’t know. But somehow I got in my head that they said there was an ethical violation, and that’s the one that seemed to fit.
I doubt they are textualists, but a sharp distinction between patients and non-patients is possible.
So far as I am aware, no one except the pet sitter has claimed that the cat was a pet – that is, the owners have not come forward. Establishing that the cat was a pet, and not feral, even for the purposes of supporting an ethics violation, can’t be done on that basis.
Is this a statement of fact or your opinion?
Why not? I’ve seen your descriptions of why it wouldn’t be admitted as evidence in court, but isn’t the American Veterinary Medical Association (or whoever made the decision) free to establish its own standards on what evidence to accept, and to evaluate this claim as they see fit?
For that matter, why do you even bring this up as an issue? Has it been established somewhere that this (the animal being a pet, and not feral) was a necessary fact in establishing an ethics violation?
It’s my opinion that Dr. Lindsey won’t be sentenced to death for killing this cat. Of course, it’s an opinion that is informed by a knowledge of the law surrounding the issue.
I say this to point out that your question presupposes that there is some line, a line that you and I will both agree to, about how much certainty I need to declare that an analysis like this is a fact.
It’s an opinion, but one informed by general precepts of law. While the organization is a private one that explicitly says they are not bound by any specific rules of evidence in evaluating claims of ethics violations, it’s difficult to see how, on the available evidence, they could credit the second-hand hearsay of the only person who has claimed the cat was a pet. Lindsey paid dues to these people; she has privity of contract with them and they owe her a duty of good faith in their fact-finding. Adopting such a loose evidentiary standard would potentially open them up to a lawsuit from her.
Yes, and no. They owe a general duty of care to their members, and cannot adopt standards that breach that duty. Accepting a second party, hearsay-within-hearsay declaration that gives essentially no opportunity for contradiction breaches that duty.
Quoted posts allow you click a link to follow the conversation backwards. If you do that, you will soon discover the answer to this question.
Yes, there are such links, and aren’t you clever for pointing that out. Let’s try following the links back to see if it answers my question, shall we?
And look there, no link. That’s your post #372. I’ve edited to the relevant portion that I was asking about, but there’s no link. The next time you tell someone to follow the links, perhaps you should try it yourself, first.
It could be that you’re referring to BigT’s post #367, which cites sections of the AVMA’s Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics, and the following posts which discuss whether those principles apply to the vet’s patients or to all animals (with hunting cited as a relevant example). I don’t see my question answered there, either. While vets may be allowed to hunt game animals for food, that doesn’t necessarily carry over to hunting feral cats with a crossbow (or a bow-and-arrow, as has been argued here), especially when non-lethal means of controlling feral populations exist.
So I’ll ask again, who has determined that Dr. Graham committed an ethical violation, was the animal’s status (pet or feral) a relevant factor in reaching that determination, and did they rely on the pet sitter’s statement in determining that status? And if you could link to the source of your information on such matters, that’d be peachy. Or, failing that, why did you bring up the pet-sitter’s hearsay in relation to an ethics violation?
It’s just strange that you, of all people, made such a boldly confident statement about the evidentiary standard used by some organization you know nothing about. You’re the guy who complains whenever someone says “That person broke the law” without having a thorough understanding of the law. Maybe next time those posters should come back with some bullshit about presupposing a line of certainty.
The thing is, whether or not the dead cat was a pet matters very much for the law, but I see it as being a secondary consideration for an ethical charge. Consider a well groomed, well fed dog walking through Dr. Lindsey’s back yard. The dog is wearing a collar, and very clearly from the collar is a tag that says “Spot.” Dr. Lindsey calls the dog over and, wagging it’s tail, he happily complies; this dog is clearly not shy of human contact. Dr. Lindsey then reaches out, grabs the dog by the neck, snaps it, and happily declares, “There, one less feral dog to worry about.”
The police investigate and discover that the dog was, in fact, feral. The collar was attached by a bored teenager, who found both the dog and the collar in a parking lot a short time earlier, and the well-groomed, well-fed appearance and outgoing personality were just flukes of circumstance. Per the law, or at least the Texas penal code cited in this thread, Dr. Lindsey lucked out.
The ethical review board would probably take a different view, wouldn’t you say?
eta: Or consider the reverse, a haggard looking dog with mange acting erratic in her back yard, with no collar and seemingly afraid of humans. She corners the dog and kills it in the same manner, but then scans its neck and discovers that it was actually her next door neighbor’s pet.
That’s a valid complaint. Barely, but valid. I should have made clear that when a post doesn’t have a linked quote to which it’s replying, it’s often the case that the reply is directed to the post’s immediate predecessor. And such is the case here: my post #372 does not, as you correctly point out, have any links, but it is in reply to post #371 which immediately precedes it.
In post 371, BigT raises the spectre of an ethics violation connected to the cat’s status as a pet, as opposed to feral, and the subsequent discussion was in response to that.
Yep! That was the beginning.
Vets are also allowed to participate in trap-and-kill programs intended to reduce feral cat populations (see, e.g. Use of matrix population models to estimate the efficacy of euthanasia versus trap-neuter-return for management of free-roaming cats, J Am Vet Med Assoc 2004;225:1871–1876), notwithstanding the ethics language and notwithstanding the availability of non-lethal trap-neuter-release feral cat programs. Indeed, false claims about the efficacy of trap-neuter-release programs is what got me interested in this thread.
I have no idea who Dr. Graham is.
So I don’t know the answer to this question, nor any of the ones that follow it.
Before I said it, I read the AVMA Judicial Committee by-laws relating to their process and rules of evidence.
Under that fact pattern, probably yes. Under Dr. Lindsey’s fact pattern, no. (Of course, when I say “Dr. Lindsey’s fact pattern,” I am referring to the limited set of facts that are public knowledge now; if it should come to light that she was interviewed by the sheriff and confessed to knowing the cat was a pet, then obviously that would be a new, and game-changing, fact.)
In that case, neither the law nor the ethics issues would likely be in play.