“[14-year-old chow mix] Harley was confiscated from [owner Tammy] Brown in 2011 by a Pasco County, Fla., animal services officer and euthanized. At the time, he had some pus in his eyes and some of his skin was cracked and bleeding. Although Brown couldn’t afford to take the dog to the vet, the state argued at a hearing last year that she could have taken Harley to a local shelter or animal rescue.” [Martha Neil, ABA Journal]
More, follow-up story on sentencing: after 36 days in jail, Brown drew six months house arrest, three years probation, $1,000 in court costs, and an order that she not own a pet of any kind. The prosecutor, pointing to earlier misdemeanor convictions not involving animals, had asked that she be given a year behind bars.
Tagged as:
animals
“The Indianapolis Star reports that the Indiana Department of Natural Resources wants to prosecute Jeff and Jennifer Counceller for taking care of an injured deer that showed up on their doorstep.” [CBS Cleveland via Amy Alkon, Dan Mitchell] A while back I wrote about the case in which a Virginia family got in trouble with the feds after their 11-year-old rescued a baby woodpecker in their back yard and cared for it for a day or two before releasing it.
Tagged as:
animals,
environment
Key West, Fla.: “The Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum reports that it currently houses between 40 and 50 cats [descended from the famous author's beloved six-toed cat]…. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled Friday that the Hemingway Home falls under the classification of an ‘animal exhibitor,’ subject to regulation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Animal Welfare Act.” [David Demirbilek, Daily Caller; Christian Science Monitor; ABA Journal]
Tagged as:
animals,
Florida
In the New York Daily News, Lawrence Cunningham argues that skewed economic incentives — some of them advanced by the actions of federal prosecutors, who applied muscle in a tax-fraud settlement to press for the casino-ization of Aqueduct Race Track — contributed to the deaths of 21 racehorses, most of whom were entered in races with purses artificially inflated so as far to exceed their own economic worth. “Politicians and prosecutors should not direct business changes without understanding their significance. What’s happening to the horses at Aqueduct could have been prevented.”
Tagged as:
animals,
prosecution,
sports
- That’s represent, not resemble: “Lawyer appointed to represent pit bull” [WSJ, NY Times] NJ lawmakers eye idea of doggie seat belts, cont’d [Bloomberg, earlier here, here]
- “Government to Argue That Detention for Carrying Arabic Flashcards Was Justified” [Lowering the Bar]
- Columnist-suing attorney continues to reap lots of lawyer love in her race for Illinois judgeship [Madison County Record]
- Speaking of which, what is it about Madison County, Illinois, anyway? [Radley Balko, more]
- Sense of humor: I wasn’t expecting Values Bus to retweet this of mine;
- Why the SEC keeps losing in court [Eugene Scalia, WSJ; Ed Whelan, NR "Bench Memos," on Steven Pearlstein's dyspeptic Washington Post rant about purported activism by D.C. Circuit judges]
- Unintended consequences: “Olive Garden, Others to Cut Worker Hours in Advance of Obamacare” [Washington Free Beacon]
Tagged as:
animals,
D.C. Circuit,
Madison County,
ObamaCare,
Securities and Exchange Commission
“The [Florida] DOT had hired TransCore months earlier to install a wildlife warning system along the stretch of eastern Collier County road, infamous for being deadly for the endangered wildcats, to test whether the system would reduce the number of collisions between panthers and vehicles. It didn’t help [motorcyclist Kenneth] Nolan,” who ran into a panther and is now suing over the consequent injury. [Eric Staats, Naples News via Julie Meadows-Keefe]
Tagged as:
animals,
Florida,
roads and streets
- Judge OKs settlement in Skechers shoe promotion suits, valued at $40 million [WaPo, earlier]
- “Philadelphia woman faces $600-a-day fine for feeding needy neighborhood kids” [Fox]
- “Minister Found Guilty of Aiding Miller-Jenkins Kidnapping” [BTB, my latest, earlier]
- Yes, the HHS waiver eviscerates welfare reform [Andrew Grossman, Kaus, more, yet more; Bader, more; Kay Hymowitz, City Journal (quoting Doug Besharov on the reversal: "The domestic policy staff doesn't believe in 'work first'"); contra, Josh Barro, Dave Weigel] USDA: Por favor, acepte food handout [Barton Hinkle, Bader, NR (backs off)]
- Reason “nanny of month” is New Jersey dog seat belt law [Ted Balaker, Hit and Run; our earlier coverage]
- “Malicious prosecution, unfair trials and the U.S. Constitution” [Alison Frankel, Reuters]
- Manchester, Conn.: “Mom Arrested for Letting Her Kids, 11 & 7, Walk to Pizza Shop” [Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids] “Desperate Dad: ‘I Let My 12 y.o. Play Outside. Is that Criminal?’” [Skenazy, The Agitator; update on another case]
Tagged as:
animals,
Miller-Jenkins case,
New Jersey,
Philadelphia
- Appalling: localities partner with tax-farming “probation” firms to run up routine misdemeanor fines into crushing debts for citizenry [NYT, Tuccille/Reason] “Pay Up: Criminal Justice Debt in Philadelphia” [Penn Law/YouTube, Brennan Center]
- “The institute estimates a wrongful conviction rate in sex assault cases of between 8-15%” [Richmond Times-Dispatch; Urban Institute via Balko] For the guilty, marginalization may worsen recidivism: “Do Sex Offender Registries Make Us Less Safe?” [Prescott, Regulation mag, PDF] Sex-offense detention for dollars [Greenfield]
- Majority of Florida voters support Stand Your Ground [Quinnipiac; Glyn/NRO; earlier, Sun-Sentinel] Collection of cases in which Florida SYG defense was asserted [Tampa Bay Times; Ta-Nehisi Coates; Jacob Sullum on TBT's slant, related by Sullum here and here] Bipartisan origins of Florida SYG statute differ greatly from what you may have heard [Daily Caller, auto-plays video] “Two studies on Stand Your Ground” [Robert VerBruggen/NRO] Florida lawyer Troy Webber’s analysis of law [Hussein & Webber] Related: Jeralyn Merritt.
- Problems with police dogs as evidence [Balko, Greenfield]
- Tennessee: “Mom jailed for letting kids play at park” [Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids, related]
- Tenth Circuit adopts broad view of already-broad federal wire fraud statute [Paul Enzinna/PoL]
- New Gotham law will fine taxi drivers up to $10K for giving ride to a prostitute, drivers will have to take a course on recognizing what hookers look like [Amy Alkon]
Tagged as:
animals,
Florida,
NYC,
Philadelphia,
police,
prosecution,
self-defense,
Tennessee,
Tenth Circuit
The way Lafayette County, Miss. authorities saw it, Oxford animal rescuer Stephanie Mitchell was in violation of a state law making it a felony to take or carry away another person’s dog. Mitchell says the dog was a stray and that she had put the dog’s picture on Facebook trying to identify its owner. [WMC]
Tagged as:
animal shelters,
animals,
Mississippi
You didn’t think it was going to stop with humans, did you? The fines in New Jersey for driving with pets not restrained by harnesses or carriers are a lot bigger than the fines for driving with unbelted people [John Cichowski, "Not buckling up your pet in the car can mean big fines," NorthJersey.com] (& Alkon)
Tagged as:
animals,
traffic laws
It’s presumably an intended effect of the recent court ruling that landlords will threaten families with eviction unless they stop keeping the dogs as pets, and that skittish insurers will hike rates on such households sharply or refuse to insure them entirely. But there is much uncertainty as to exactly which dogs count as “pit bulls”; will Maryland pet owners need to shell out for DNA testing, at $120 a pop? And is it also an intended effect of the ruling that unoffending, well-trained dogs end up being euthanized in droves? “Ohio recently repealed its statewide breed-specific legislation because it was ineffective and inequitable,” notes my Cato Institute colleague Nita Ghei. [Daily Caller, earlier]
Tagged as:
animals,
dog bites,
Maryland
- “Fan sues Insane Clown Posse after injury at Illinois concert” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch] “As Insanity is not a defense to the claim, the Clowns are now adding litigation counsel to their Posse.” [@colinsamuels]
- Suit on behalf of school-cheat son “wouldn’t have been much of a story” if dad had left argument to hired gun [Mark Bennett, earlier]
- If you can’t buy a Coke with your debit card any more, this may be why [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason] Related: “a ‘do-nothing Congress’ is sort of like a ‘do-nothing arsonist.’” [IowaHawk]
- L.A. judge reverses much-publicized Honda small claims award [CBS Local, earlier]
- Harris County judge deems pig “common, traditional” pet in homeowner association suit [Houston Chronicle]
- Plaintiffs, not just defendants, can use Daubert to exclude opponents’ scientific theories that fall short of general acceptance by the relevant scientific community. Why is this news when it was clearly part of the intended and expected effect of Daubert from day one? [guestposter Mark Bower at Turkewitz]
- “The unfair attack on ALEC” [Ted Frank and Jim Copland at PoL] More: Wendy Gramm and Brooke Rollins, WSJ.
Tagged as:
animals,
Daubert,
debtor-creditor law,
music and musicians
“Oregon officials … want federal approval to shoot a sea bird that eats millions of baby salmon trying to reach the ocean. Oregon needs federal approval to start shooting double-crested cormorants because the birds are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.” The state has previously attempted to protect the salmon fry by paying for speedboats and firecrackers to harass the cormorants, but “harassment has ‘proved insufficient.’” [East Oregonian via Balko]
P.S.: Meanwhile, “Federal prosecutors hope to use an obscure law to punish two recreational pilots whose low flying may have disturbed thousands of resting migratory birds in Iowa.” [h/t Baylen Linnekin]
Tagged as:
animals,
endangered species,
Oregon
