AlamoSpursFan
05-19-2005, 09:18 AM
In Texas, you can kill your dog but not a neighbor's
Web Posted: 05/18/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Lomi Kriel
Express-News Austin Bureau
AUSTIN — If you torture an animal in Texas, you can go to jail.
But if you hit 22 emus with a baseball bat or set fire to a rabbit and decapitate it while it's still alive, nothing will happen.
That's because prosecutors say their hands simply are tied in certain animal cruelty cases.
Patrick Wilson, assistant district attorney for Ellis County, discovered that when he tried to prosecute a man who'd been arguing with his neighbor and came home drunk and irritated one night. The man shot his female puppy and threw it over the fence into the neighbor's yard.
The puppy gasped and gurgled for about 45 minutes before it died, Wilson said.
And the man? A jury wanted to convict him of something, Wilson said, but at the end of the day, "he walked home like the rest of us."
Under Texas law, causing serious bodily injury to an animal is an offense only if it's committed against an animal owned by another person. You can't prosecute people for mistreating their own pets.
The statute also exempts certain livestock and stray animals, so a person can legally kill or hurt another person's horse or a stray cat.
Richard Alpert, assistant district attorney in Tarrant County, said prosecutors couldn't press charges against a doctor who killed his emus by bashing them over the head with a baseball bat.
The law doesn't allow torture but, "for all practical purposes, you can kill your own animal in as cruel a manner as you choose," said Susan Hendrix, spokeswoman of the Texas Humane Legislation Network. "And you get off without any penalty at all."
Animal rights activists and prosecutors urged lawmakers this session to tighten some of those loopholes. But even with their long list of examples — the stray cat skinned by two Baylor University baseball players, the castrated Lajitas goat — the loopholes likely will stay loose.
"It's on serious life support," Rep. Toby Goodman, R-Arlington, said of his bill that has been stuck in a House committee.
Goodman is rallying a Senate committee to approve a similar measure, but it's going nowhere as deadlines approach.
Sportsmen and agricultural interests have resisted it, worried it could affect their hobbies and livelihoods. Rep. Rick Hardcastle, R-Vernon, who chairs the committee that stifled the House bill, is a farmer and rancher himself.
"I am not going to put the animal agricultural industry in jeopardy of lawsuits," he said.
Hardcastle said he doesn't see a need for a change to current law, and that attorneys could seek other ways and use other statutes to prosecute egregious instances of animal cruelty.
"There's a fine line between animal rights and civil liberties," he said, worrying that under the bill, "animal owners would suddenly have to give up their rights."
Gib Lewis, a lobbyist for the Texas Wildlife Association, said his and other organizations that oppose the bill believe "animals should be treated with a great amount of tenderness and care."
But current law is sufficient and proposals like this one will only "make criminals out of ordinary people," he said.
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Web Posted: 05/18/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Lomi Kriel
Express-News Austin Bureau
AUSTIN — If you torture an animal in Texas, you can go to jail.
But if you hit 22 emus with a baseball bat or set fire to a rabbit and decapitate it while it's still alive, nothing will happen.
That's because prosecutors say their hands simply are tied in certain animal cruelty cases.
Patrick Wilson, assistant district attorney for Ellis County, discovered that when he tried to prosecute a man who'd been arguing with his neighbor and came home drunk and irritated one night. The man shot his female puppy and threw it over the fence into the neighbor's yard.
The puppy gasped and gurgled for about 45 minutes before it died, Wilson said.
And the man? A jury wanted to convict him of something, Wilson said, but at the end of the day, "he walked home like the rest of us."
Under Texas law, causing serious bodily injury to an animal is an offense only if it's committed against an animal owned by another person. You can't prosecute people for mistreating their own pets.
The statute also exempts certain livestock and stray animals, so a person can legally kill or hurt another person's horse or a stray cat.
Richard Alpert, assistant district attorney in Tarrant County, said prosecutors couldn't press charges against a doctor who killed his emus by bashing them over the head with a baseball bat.
The law doesn't allow torture but, "for all practical purposes, you can kill your own animal in as cruel a manner as you choose," said Susan Hendrix, spokeswoman of the Texas Humane Legislation Network. "And you get off without any penalty at all."
Animal rights activists and prosecutors urged lawmakers this session to tighten some of those loopholes. But even with their long list of examples — the stray cat skinned by two Baylor University baseball players, the castrated Lajitas goat — the loopholes likely will stay loose.
"It's on serious life support," Rep. Toby Goodman, R-Arlington, said of his bill that has been stuck in a House committee.
Goodman is rallying a Senate committee to approve a similar measure, but it's going nowhere as deadlines approach.
Sportsmen and agricultural interests have resisted it, worried it could affect their hobbies and livelihoods. Rep. Rick Hardcastle, R-Vernon, who chairs the committee that stifled the House bill, is a farmer and rancher himself.
"I am not going to put the animal agricultural industry in jeopardy of lawsuits," he said.
Hardcastle said he doesn't see a need for a change to current law, and that attorneys could seek other ways and use other statutes to prosecute egregious instances of animal cruelty.
"There's a fine line between animal rights and civil liberties," he said, worrying that under the bill, "animal owners would suddenly have to give up their rights."
Gib Lewis, a lobbyist for the Texas Wildlife Association, said his and other organizations that oppose the bill believe "animals should be treated with a great amount of tenderness and care."
But current law is sufficient and proposals like this one will only "make criminals out of ordinary people," he said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[email protected]