06/28/2007

Animal abuse equals jail time — so we say

By Marta Hepler Drahos
Record-Eagle staff writer
mdrahos@
record-eagle.com

Read Marta's past columns here

Like others around the region I learned, with horror, of the recent discovery of some 60 dead or starving cats abandoned in a Benzie County home.

In what the local animal control officer called the worst case of animal neglect he has seen, the cats were left to fend for themselves for at least a week without food or water and had become so desperate they were eating each other in the feces-covered, maggot-ridden rooms.

Nearly 20 of the 41 surviving animals had to be euthanized in the first two days.

A couple has been arrested on several misdemeanor animal cruelty charges each, and the county prosecutor is reviewing police reports before finalizing his case against them. Charges could range from a 93-day misdemeanor up to a four-year felony.

That's all well and good, but I'm not holding my breath. I've learned that we're fickle when it comes to punishing animal abusers. On the one hand, we want to throw the book at them, and cry for tougher animal cruelty laws. On the other, we shrink from enforcing the laws we already have.

Take the case that played out in 2001 and 2002 just across the county line. In that case, a Leelanau County man was tried on 18 counts of animal neglect for not properly caring for his horses, one of which had to be euthanized.

Animal lovers and the general public were outraged at the extent of the neglect and were only too happy to let the then-prosecutor do her job. But when the misdemeanor trial ran to 10 days and costs of over $19,000, the tide turned.

Suddenly the animals didn't matter anymore, and neither did the incontrovertible evidence linking animal cruelty and human violence.

Though the jury did its part by convicting on 13 of the counts, there was barely a whimper when the judge passed down his sentence: 30 days in jail — less than a third of the maximum sentence allowed by law — and a $500 fine. (Plus, of course, the all-important costs of the trial and prosecution).

There was no whimper at all when, two years later, the prosecutor lost her bid for reelection, thanks largely to local farmers still angered by her decision to prosecute over the treatment of what, after all, amounted to livestock. What would be next, they argued? Cattle? Pigs?

This time around, the case is in a different county before a different judge. And it's about companion animals — the pets we're supposed to love and protect — rather than farm animals.

Let's hope that this time the legal system gets it right.

Staff writer Marta Hepler Drahos can be reached at mdrahos@record-eagle.com.