[L]awmakers are calling for stiffer penalties for animal cruelty in the wake of a horse killing in Barre last fall.
Regan Howard, who owned the mare named Bunny, said she’s thankful lawmakers are working to prevent future incidents like her family has endured. Howard said ideally she’d like legislators to go further than they have, however.
The law as proposed would increase the penalties for the crime of cruelty to animals, but Howard and others say what’s needed is a lower standard for prosecution.
“It’s better than it was, but I think it could be stronger — although, certainly, any improvement in animal cruelty is good,” Howard said.
The bill may make penalties more severe for convicted offenders, she said, “but without the proper tools to bring it to conviction, there’s still some inherent weakness in the laws.”
The standard prosecutors must meet for an animal cruelty case is too high to effectively achieve convictions, Howard said.
The Washington County prosecutor who brought the case against Bunny’s killer agreed.
Rory Thibault, chief deputy state’s attorney for Washington County, testified twice before legislative committees on S.12, arguing that the maximum sentence for animal cruelty should be increased.
More severe punishment for animal cruelty matters, Thibault said, even if it’s hard to bring cases forward, because it reinforces awareness that animal abuse is a serious deviation from normal behavior. Increased penalties also serve victims, such as the Howard family, whose suffering should be recognized, Thibault said.
But Thibault said what’s more important from a practical standpoint is the standard he needs to meet to prosecute those cases.
Unless legislators address that standard, he said, “increasing the maximum penalty appears to be a little more symbolic than substantive.”
To prosecute an animal cruelty case, Thibault said, he must prove someone intended to commit cruel acts against an animal. Intention is a very difficult to prove, Thibault said. Drunkenness is often enough to avoid prosecution for a crime based on intent, he said.
The young man who pleaded guilty in connection with Bunny’s death said he was drunk and had taken drugs at the time he shot the animal with an arrow. That sort of circumstance isn’t uncommon in animal cruelty cases, Thibault said.
A better standard is recklessness, Thibault said.
“People lament that they don’t see many prosecutions of animal cruelty,” he said. “We’d see more prosecutions if the theory of liability was less than intention, and I think recklessness is the right (standard).”
Senators considered including a recklessness standard in S.12, but decided against it.
Howard said she understands why senators balked at the recklessness standard. Someone riding a bike with a dog on a leash might be considered reckless in certain people’s eyes, she said.
But lawmakers ought to be able to find a way around that, Howard said. “You know animal abuse when you see it,” she said.
In the case of Howard’s horse, Quinton Clayton, of Barre, pleaded guilty to a felony criminal mischief charge and no contest to a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty and other unrelated crimes.
He had purposely shot and killed the 23-year-old Bunny with a bow and arrow in October, police said.
According to the police affidavit, Clayton said, “It wasn’t a big deal. It was just a horse and not a person.”
Clayton is serving a six-month sentence at the Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury and is scheduled to be released June 30. Clayton will serve another one to three years of a “supervised community sentence,” Thibault said, which means Clayton will be outside of a prison but still under the Department of Corrections control.
Looking beyond penalties to enforcement
Senators approved S.12 last month, and the bill now sits before the House Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, called the bill “an important piece of legislation.”
The felony sentence Clayton was charged under — a property crime — carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, while the animal cruelty charge may result in no more than a year in jail, Sears said. This isn’t fair, he said, and the attack on Bunny illustrates why.
S.12 would raise the penalty for a first aggravated animal cruelty conviction from a maximum of three years in prison and a $5,000 fine to a maximum of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Second and later offenses could result in up to a 10-year prison term (increased from five years) and a $7,500 fine.
But some animal welfare supporters say increased penalties aren’t enough.
What’s really needed is better enforcement, said Katherine Collins, of Vermont Volunteer Services for Animals Humane Society.
“The penalties for animal cruelty are already sufficient, because they’re never used,” Collins said. “Should we really be concentrating on increasing the penalties? I don’t think so. We should be concentrating on enforcing the laws that are already in place.”
Collins said the outcome of Clayton’s case marked a milestone.
“That is the first time in Vermont history, to my knowledge … that someone is going to jail for animal cruelty,” she said.
Animal cruelty offenders usually plea bargain the sentence down to avoid jail time, if they’re charged to begin with, Collins said.
The Humane Society of the United States in 2010 conducted a six-week investigation into a Vermont slaughterhouse, which resulted in a felony conviction for one of the owners.
But even in that instance, the man convicted of aggravated animal cruelty left the courthouse with probation, and not prison time, Collins said.
Collins is a trained animal cruelty investigator who volunteers with a couple of animal welfare organizations in Vermont, and said she’s been involved in multiple cases where illegal and cruel behavior went unpunished.
In one instance, Collins said, she sought help from state police when she found a man with more than 70 dogs tethered outside in the winter without shelter.
The law already requires, for domesticated outdoor dogs, “suitable housing that assures that the dog is protected from wind and draft, and from excessive sun, rain and other environmental hazards throughout the year.”
Nevertheless, Collins said, when she took state police to the man’s compound, they observed the unsheltered dogs but declined to take action.
“The law is clear, and you can’t get a cop to do something,” she said. “Where do you go? Especially when you’ve gone to the state police — that’s the top.”
Vermont State Police officers did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Collins said that in at least half a dozen instances she and others have built dog houses, and left them during the night in front of homes inhabited by dog owners who won’t shelter their pets.
“People still believe that you get a dog, and hitch it outside, and that’s it,” she said.
Addressing shelter and other issues
Another piece of legislation, H.218, addresses the issue of neglect.
H.218 revises existing ordinances on what sort of shelter dog and cat owners must provide their pets. It also touches upon requirements having to do with adequate water for pets.
Those shelters, under the bill, may not be made from old refrigerators, cars or metal barrels.
Dog owners must provide adequate shelter, and if a dog is shivering as a result of cold weather, that’s evidence of inadequate shelter, the bill says.
Another bill, H.204, would make it illegal for owners to abandon their pets, and would prohibit animal shelters from euthanizing animals through any means other than injection of euthanasia solutions.
Vermont currently ranks in the middle among the states for its animal protection laws, according to a report by the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
These laws matter more broadly because people who commit violence against animals have been shown to be far more likely to commit violence against other people, said David Rosengard, an attorney and Criminal Justice Fellow at that organization. Likewise, people who neglect their pets have been found to be much more likely to neglect elderly family members and children, he said.
“Having animal protection laws that really focus on (cruelty and neglect) allows law enforcement to effectively intervene, both on behalf of the animals and on behalf of humans,” Rosengard said.
The animals themselves are a justification for animal protection laws as well, Rosengard said. Animals are sentient beings, and therefore able to feel pain, he said. Civil societies don’t tolerate unjust and undue suffering, whether the sufferer is human or not, he said.
While Rosengard said he favors the bills currently before Vermont legislators, he said other areas remain where Vermont could improve laws protecting animals.
For instance, sexual abuse against animals is legal in Vermont, Rosengard said, as is the case in Hawaii, Kentucky, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.
“As with other forms of animal abuse, bestiality overlaps significantly with violence perpetrated against humans, including domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse,” Rosengard said. “Enabling the law to effectively intervene on behalf of the animal victims of bestiality thus also benefits human victims of violence.”
A bill called H.325 was introduced last month by Rep. Curt McCormack, D-Burlington, that would make bestiality a crime subject to the same penalties as other animal cruelty offenses.
Rosengard said Vermont law could also benefit from a requirement that veterinarians report suspected animal abuse, similar to the way in which physicians must report suspected child abuse. Another meaningful improvement in Vermont’s animal protection law would increase coordination among agencies, enabling agencies to investigate whether people convicted of violence or neglect against animals are hurting people as well.
