Patrick J Battuello

Archive for the ‘Law’ Category

Blood on Their Hands

In Dogfighting, Law on February 24, 2012 at 1:15 pm

Last September, the NYS Legislature finally saw fit to make attending an animal fight a misdemeanor (prior to this, it was a zero-penalty violation). Alas, though, it is but a Class B, three month infraction (just one year if second offense). However, if sufficient evidence exists that cash changed hands (gambling, primarily), the penalty can increase to one year. Why this discrepancy? Should it make any difference if one comes merely for the entertainment? What kind of a person enjoys watching brutally-trained dogs forced to destroy each other? What kind of a person applauds the victor hovering over his battered, blood-soaked, and sometimes lifeless rival? What kind of a person revels in the public execution of the loser at the hands of his owner (remember, Michael Vick confessed to personally killing – hanging, drowning, electrocuting – his underperformers)?

There is, still, a larger, more significant discrepancy between how the law treats spectators and the fighters themselves. The people responsible for staging animal fights are subject to a felony charge carrying a four year prison sentence. On this, New York is to be commended. But some basic logic is in order. Dogfighting exists either as a business for profit or as a street-level matter of reputations. The more professional operations are entirely sustained by admission and wagering. In other words, by the spectator. In the cruder neighborhood form, dogs act as expendable surrogates for men pursuing upward social mobility. Often gang-related, this back-alley savagery would lack any meaning without bystanders to attest. Clearly, the fans, betting or not, fuel the evil, and the industry implodes in their absence.

Senator John DeFrancisco, a sponsor of New York’s recent amendment, acknowledged the simple truth when he said (The Post-Standard, 8/4/11), “Without spectators, the events would not happen.” Then why three months? The HSUS currently ranks our state 48th in anti-dogfighting legislation; 28 other states have already made spectating a felony. New York has much work to do.

Dogfighting is sadism defined, a generally-accepted societal wrong that could be eliminated in our lifetime. But why do we insist on waging this battle with one hand tied? On this, I confess bemusement. Is there a politically important lobby that must be appeased? If not, but rather an indisposition to further clog courts and cells, then I ask: What is our justice system for if not to protect the most vulnerable among us from wanton cruelty? The miscreants mired in this cesspool, be they owners, trainers, fighters, or onlookers, are not otherwise kind, upstanding citizens simply allowing dogs to be dogs. Each, in fact, is a sadist, perhaps the worst thing we can say about a fellow human being, and should be punished accordingly. The pit (bullring) is the modern day Colosseum, bloodlust and all.

Burning Up

In Dogs, Factory Farming, Law, Turkeys on August 6, 2011 at 10:09 am

In late June, English police-dog trainer Sgt. Ian Craven attempted suicide after learning that his charges, two Belgian Shepherds, had died after he left them in a sweltering car for nearly six hours. Worse, this is not the first time a dog has baked to death under his care. Also in June, a 19-year-old California woman left her young Golden Retriever to die in a mall parking lot while she shopped…for three hours. In May, a Florida woman did the same while visiting her mother on a college campus. After being alerted by security, she returned to her car to find the dog (Florida Times-Union, 5/22/11) “panting and unable to stand.” That dog, too, perished.

This past month, a Minnesota woman, who had just completed a vet visit with her two Terriers, stopped at a restaurant for lunch. She emerged 2 1/2 hours later to find the dogs dead. But within that same state, word comes of the heat-related deaths of roughly 105,000 factory-farmed turkeys and 1,500 cattle. No talk here, however, of animal cruelty charges, suicidal guardians, or angry citizens. Just money: “Minnesota Turkey Growers Association Executive Director Steve Olson says the 105,000 turkeys lost equals an economic hit of somewhere between $1.1 and $1.6 million.” This stunning incongruity conveniently ignores that dogs and turkeys suffer in an uncomfortably similar way.

Since a dog cools himself by panting, a hot, tightly-shut car quickly becomes a hellhole, even in milder summer temperatures. The process begins with rapid, frantic breathing (which further deteriorates the confined space) as his internal temperature climbs. He will then become unsteady and stagger, with vomiting and bloody diarrhea common. As desperate panic mounts, cells die, and the kidneys and brain begin to fail. Seizures and/or coma, then death. However, renowned veterinarian Holly Cheever told me that “heat prostration is much the same in most vertebrate species”; in other words, the turkeys and cows endured the same awful, and ultimately fatal, distress as those dogs. A distress, by the way, measured in hours.

So, why is one reported as cruelty and received with sadness, while the other a business misfortune? Simply put, we have long-acquiesced to a gaping hole in our moral reasoning. The pity and outrage we feel regarding the dogs is born of allowing ourselves an emotional attachment to them. Of course, the people responsible for those canine deaths will never be punished satisfactorily; we profess to care about dog suffering, but not enough to do more than merely inconvenience dog killers. On the other hand, the turkeys and cows, as production widgets, elicit virtually no sympathy upon news of their untimely ends. That is irrational, inconsistent, and very sad.

All Hunting (Not Just Canned) Is Unsportsmanlike

In Hunting, Law on July 30, 2011 at 11:26 am

“Canned hunts are cruel and unsportsmanlike. The practice of killing tame, exotic animals within the confines of an enclosure where the animals have no chance of escape is contrary to the principles of fair chase, sportsmanship and common decency. Captive hunts are out of step with common principles governing responsible hunting and should be banned.” (Congressman Steve Cohen)

“Canned hunting is not a real sport. It is abhorrent and cruel, and there is really no hunting involved.” (Congressman Brad Sherman)

The HSUS has recently endorsed a new House bill aimed at curtailing the canned hunting industry (Fred’s Death). The bill, Sportsmanship in Hunting Act of 2011, only applies to the interstate (federal jurisdiction) trade of an “exotic animal” (a mammal “not indigenous to the United States”) “for the purposes of allowing the killing or injuring of that animal for entertainment or for the collection of a trophy.” It would also criminalize (up to five years) computer-assisted remote hunting (shooting animals with your mouse), which is not currently a problem.

There are roughly 1,000 American ranches, or preserves, offering captive exotics (or simple whitetails and pheasants) for sacrifice. Here, you can enjoy the charms of a rustic lodge, home cooking, beautiful scenery (including many of the vanquished), and the exhilaration of the impending track and kill. When successful, and you will be successful, your pride must be preserved for posterity. The process is sad: Securely enclosed (zero chance for escape), the typically docile, tame, and trusting animals are destroyed for racks and photo ops. Logic dictates that not everyone gets off a clean kill-shot, especially those who frequent these ranches, so their practice often come at the expense of an animal’s protracted death.

Still, the politicians’ quotes merit a closer look. The American hunting experience is steeped in a tradition of airy rhetoric: honorable sportsmanship, respect for the animal, communion with nature, bonding with forebears, and rite of passage. These “common principles” are so ingrained that arguments to the contrary are viewed as heresy promulgated by the ignorant. But how exactly is hunting a sport (Man vs Mallard)? What, do tell, constitutes a “fair chase”? Are the decidedly benign deer and duck (who would not be protected by this law) worthy adversaries? Sport implies competition (nonlethal, of course) between willing rivals. Someone, then, should inform these creatures that they’re in a game.

Well-meaning as this bill may be (Rep. Cohen, owing to his initiatives on crush videos and horse transport, was honored by the HSUS earlier this year), it is irrational to protect some species from this brand of cruelty, but not others. Also, the “fair chase” argument, along with humane culling and ecological balancing, is specious. It is what hunters tell themselves to justify their pursuit of pleasure. In short, all human hunting of animals is, by definition, unsportsmanlike. It’s high time for hunters to get over themselves.

NY’s Ag-Gag Bill: Who Will Bear Witness to Their Suffering?

In Factory Farming, Law on July 30, 2011 at 2:33 am

“Anyone who takes a drive through the countryside gets a chance to see how farming is done today. It’s not that big a secret.” (Jim Reagen, spokesman for Senator Patty Ritchie, Time, 6/14/11)

Please watch before proceeding.

If the NY Farm Bureau (with help from sympathetic legislators like Senator Ritchie) has its way, undercover videos from PETA (the HSUS, Mercy For Animals, Compassion Over Killing, the Humane Farming Association, Compassionate Consumers, et al.) would be no more. Tucked within a new senate Unlawful Tampering With Farm Animals bill (S5172-2011), lies a prohibition against “…unauthorized video, audio recording or photography done without the farm owner’s written consent.” The bill, having passed committee, still must come before the entire senate and currently lacks an assembly sponsor.

In theory, the MFA investigator who shot this video would face a stiffer penalty (up to one year in jail) than the Willet Dairy employee who beat up a cow (for the record, a $555 fine and no animal contact for a year, at which point he could resume work in his field). NY is the fourth state this year to introduce this type of legislation, but the purported purpose here, as Senator Ritchie tells Time, is “to help insure the safety and integrity of the state’s food supply.” She is mostly talking about illegal antibiotic injections and potential terrorist activity (shady characters lurking with a camera). That, though, is a smokescreen. Big Agribusiness has been hurt by the undercover reporting and aims to stop it.

To be sure, virtually every business has something about their operation they’d rather the public not see. But can’t a reasonable distinction be drawn between flies in a restaurant kitchen (covered by the health department, anyhow) and wrenches to a cow’s head (not covered by the Animal Welfare Act; i.e., the farms are watching themselves)? Senator Ritchie’s political-speak aside, this bill has about as much to do with protecting the food supply (which Reagen admits is not currently a problem) as the Civil War had to do with states’ rights. Livestock processing (including intelligent, sensitive creatures being tortured) in the raw does not make for good business. And part of Ritchie’s job is to protect that business.

Industry claims of tape edits and lack of proper context recall the Rodney King case. Then, police defenders argued that what took place before (and inaudible belligerence during) in some way justified what they did. Roughly, this translates to trust us, not your eyes. With animals, docile and utterly powerless ones at that, what context to the recorded cruelty (both savage physical assaults and painful standard procedures where anesthetics/analgesics could be, but aren’t, used) are we missing? And, not one undercover video from an animal rights group has ever been proven fraudulent.

If, somehow, this bill (or a version thereof) passes, then acts of civil disobedience would never be more warranted. For not every law, as Henry David Thoreau argued, is just and should be obeyed. To these poor, forgotten animals, the activists often represent their only line of defense; without the images (whistelblowing employees would also be barred from using cameras), a war of words ensues. And who usually wins those battles? With cruelty arrests rare (and convictions even rarer), law enforcement needs all available tools to ferret out the abusers (the Cayuga County prosecutor on Willet Dairy told Time that the MFA video “was the case”).

Factory farms claim to have (and enforce) ethical standards (where were they here? or here?), and government supposedly provides safety nets (here? how about here?). But how is it that the only regular government inspections of these farms is by the EPA for environmental purposes? If not for the work of investigators, the animals’ cries would (will) be forever muted; their stories left untold. S5172-2011 stands against knowledge, and for ignorance. Even if not particularly interested in animal matters, please let your legislators know that the only thing the Ag-Gag bill gags is the time-honored tradition of investigative journalism, which is an essential component of any democracy. As the NY Times said in an editorial against, “We need to know more about what goes on behind those closed doors, not less.”

Raping Pets

In Law, Zoophilia/Bestiality on July 23, 2011 at 3:47 pm

Joy Joco of Suffolk, Virginia, left her horses to graze while running errands this past Labor Day. Upon returning home, she noticed that one was bleeding. After examining Angel, her veterinarian turned to her and said, “This horse has been raped, you need to call the police.” The assailant(s) cut through a fence in the field behind her home, physically restrained Angel, and proceeded to sexually assault her with a blunt object (perhaps a baseball bat). The case remains open.

WTKR (9/8/10) quotes a pair of psychology professors. Louis Janda: “Somebody who could harm an animal doesn’t really have the same sense of empathy that most of us have, to hate to see other living creatures suffer.” Daralene Colson: “For people who lack empathy, attempts at treatment are fairly limited. If you just don’t have the sense, it’s hard to change someone so that they feel something when they see people or animals suffering.”

On October 21st, Long Island’s Mitchell Marsicano was arrested for sexually abusing his 23 lb. Shibu Inu in his tenants’ apartment (who had taken in the dog after witnessing prior abuse, including a sex act on October 12th). The tenant, Daniel Miller, awoke to “squealing” and “the worst picture imaginable.” The charges: one count of second degree burglary, and one count each of sexual misconduct and attempted sexual misconduct.

Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice said, “It’s unimaginable to think that anyone could carry out such unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence on a defenseless animal.” And Miller added, “He’s a monster.” But consider this: The burglary charge is a Class C felony that carries up to a 15 year sentence; the sexual misconduct (euphemism defined) charges are misdemeanors with a one year maximum. In other words, breaking into someone’s apartment is about 15 times more serious than raping a sentient animal. Imagine that.

Society cannot punish this monstrous act appropriately because Snowball is a piece of property. We know intuitively that burglary and rape are not on the same moral plane, but as legal things, animals have no serious protection. This conflict of interests almost always favors the property owner.

While zoophilia and bestiality are complicated issues that could be defended in a philosophical vacuum, the harsh reality is that people can (and do) abuse their chattel. NYS should be ashamed that raping the family dog remains a misdemeanor (even if adjudged aggravated cruelty, still only two years). At the very least, everyone should know about Marsicano’s proclivities through an abuser registry. As Drs. Janda and Colson explain, it is almost certain that empathy for animals cannot be taught to rapists, so we need to know who and where these people are.

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