Senator working to make animal cruelty felonious
Posted on Monday, August 18, 2008
There is nothing on the books that makes any kind of cruelty to animals a felony in Arkansas.
State Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, wants to change that.
Animal cruelty in Arkansas is a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum sentence of one year in jail.
The legislation Madison plans to bring up is the same bill she tried to get passed in the State Senate last year, but she said there are a few revisions and it is still being refined.
"We're working on a draft," she said.
Madison said she started working on a bill before the high profile animal cruelty incident that occurred in Newton County in late July.
Larry Cummings, 41, of Hasty and a 15-year-old were charged with burglary and animal cruelty. They are accused of videotaping themselves stomping a small dog at a neighbor's home and torturing dogs with a cattle prod in a separate incident a year ago.
Newton County Circuit Judge Gordon Webb on Aug. 9 ordered a maximum sentence of 20 years for Cummings, a habitual offender, on the burglary charge, one year for animal cruelty and one year for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The 15-year-old's case is pending.
This case "clearly shows"that the punishment would not have been as severe if Cummings had not been charged with burglary, said Desiree Bender, Arkansas state director for the Humane Society of the United States.
The law in Arkansas is one of only five states in the nation with cruelty laws that do not have felony provisions, Bender said.
Opponents of previous bills to make animal cruelty a felony in Arkansas have complained about vague wording that could open the door to felony prosecution of livestock producers or hunters.
"Without seeing the bills, we really can't make any comment," said Alton Audie Ayer, communications coordinator in the Arkansas Farm Bureau public relations department, when asked about proposed legislation.
He said the state Farm Bureau opposed animal cruelty being a felony on first offense when the legislation was brought forth last year. He would not elaborate on that opposition.
The bill to be re-introduced by Madison makes aggravated cruelty to dogs, cats or horses a felony on first offense. Madison said those are the animals that "tend to be closest to our hearts, that we tend to have a relationship with."
Aggravated cruelty is described in the bill to include torture, prolonged pain, failure to provide sufficient care and killing an animal in an "especially depraved"manner such that the offender "relishes "the killing.
"It's not about swatting a dog on the nose with a newspaper," Madison said.
"It's the clearest bill we've ever seen, as far as really restricting it to horrible acts."
People need to be punished that do "these kinds of things," she said.
Madison recalled an incident in recent years in which dogs were abandoned in rental property in West Fork. The dogs starved to death and ate through the wooden floor. The prosecutor was able to get felony level punishment for them related to damage to property, not what was done to the dogs.
"Never mind what happened to these animals. I think that struck a lot of people as wrong," Madison said.
Washington County Prosecutor John Threet says certain circumstances could warrant more punishment for animal cruelty.
"I would certainly say there are times when it seemed there should have been something more available," he said.
He said he has seen cases that were "especially cruel," where it was not just an issue of neglect, but involved purposeful cruelty.
He said the main problem with animal cruelty being a misdemeanor is that jail sentences for misdemeanors cannot be "stacked "as they can with felonies. For instance, a person convicted of several counts of animal cruelty would still receive only one year in jail.
He talked about the idea of a misdemeanor turning into a felony on second offense.
"We already do that with several other crimes," he said.
He said domestic battery is an example of a misdemeanor that becomes a felony on a subsequent offense.
As for any legislation that is passed next session, he said," Whatever law they come up with, that's what we're going to deal with."
In addition to Madison's efforts, the Humane Society of the United States is trying to work with state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel's office to write a bill, Bender said.
"We're all trying to work together," she said, mentioning the agricultural industry and other parties.
"We're all trying to find common ground to pass a good bill."
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