 Barked: Wed Feb 6, '08 11:28pm PST |
 | |  | | There is hope everyone!!! Texas law would find this guy guilty! Now they just need to prosecute!!! What he did was illegal. I already pawmailed this info to Saxony but I thought I would let you all know as well!
Affirmative Cruel Acts
Affirmative cruel actions include:
(1) torturing an animal;
(2) transporting or confining an animal in a cruel manner;
(3) killing, seriously injuring, or poisoning an animal belonging to another without legal authority or the owner’s effective consent;
(4) causing an animal to fight with another;
(5) using a live animal as a lure in dog race training or in dog coursing on a race track;
(6) tripping a horse;
(7) injuring an animal belonging to another without legal authority or the owner’s effective consent; or
(8) seriously overworking an animal.
Statutory Defenses
The Texas criminal cruelty statute outlines permissible defenses that a person could argue if he were charged with animal cruelty. While a defendant’s actions may technically fall within the cruelty definition, the law does recognize a limited number of circumstances in which injuring or killing an animal is allowable. First, Section 42.09 states clearly that one engaging in bona fide experimentation or scientific research has a viable defense to prosecution under the statute. Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 42.09(b).
Second, a person may kill an animal if he is in fear of bodily injury to himself or another person. Id. § 42.09(g). Similarly, in a situation where a person kills or seriously injures someone else’s animal without his consent, the law will not hold the person responsible if the animal was discovered on another’s property immediately after or in the act of killing or injuring livestock or another domestic animal. Id. § 42.09(e). Courts construe these defenses very strictly however. In a case involving a defendant who shot two domestic dogs that were chasing a deer and a fawn, the court refused to extend the defense to him. Bueckner v. Hamel, 886 S.W.2d 368 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1994). The court reasoned that deer are not considered “domestic,” and because the dogs were not chasing a “domestic animal,” the defense did not apply. The defense also tried to argue, albeit unsuccessfully, that the dogs at issue were known to have attacked cattle on previous occasions. The court emphasized that an attack on a protected animal must be in progress, imminent, or recent. Attacks on cattle during prior months were not “recent.”
In another case involving the killing of a dog in defense of a person and property, the court stressed that the danger must be imminent, and a real or apparent necessity must exist to justify killing the animal. City of Garland v. White, 368 S.W.2d 12 (Tex. Civ. App. 1963). In this case, police officers shot and killed a dog that was reported as vicious. However, the dog was killed much later in the day compared to when the reports were originally made, and while the dog was in its owner’s garage and retreating into the house. The court held that the danger posed by the dog must be imminent, and that killing the dog later in the day did not meet this requirement. The court also called attention to the fact the officers did not try to shut door or contain the dog, but rather shot it right away. |  |  | |  |
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The Dog Show: Who's Your Mama?
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