Discussion: 
Ken at Popehat, Ilya Shapiro at Cato at Liberty, and Eugene Volokh in several posts. Our earlier coverage is here. More: Writing for the Capital Research Center, Neil Maghami finds the Humane Society of the U.S. not so warm and fuzzy, policy-wise.
(For the Gadsden flag as illustration idea, h/t Above the Law.)
“Great-grandmother given an electronic tag and curfew for selling a goldfish to a 14 year-old”, Telegraph:
Joan Higgins, a pet shop owner, was caught selling the fish to the teenager in a ‘sting’ operation by council officials. She was then prosecuted in an eight month court process estimated to have cost the taxpayer more than £20,000.
Under new animal welfare laws, passed in 2006, it is it illegal to sell goldfish to under 16s. Offenders can be punished with up to 12 months in prison.
Mrs Higgins, 66, who thought the boy was much older than 14, escaped jail but was instead ordered to wear an electronic tag and given a night time curfew. She was also fined £1,000 by Trafford Magistrates Court. … [Her son] said the punishment she had received would prevent her from attending her weekly bingo sessions as well babysitting her one month-old great grandchild.
By a 70-30 margin [Telegraph] Earlier coverage is here, and the Wall Street Journal profiled the one cantonal animal public defender in an article last week.
P.S. Ann Althouse, on reading about the “lawyers-for-pets plan”: “I thought: What? Do you turn in your lawyer and get a pet in exchange?”
Do we even have a procedure for that? And does it matter that they were cleared of the charges? [Radley Balko]
“Fish don’t get much sympathy,” laments attorney Antoine F. Goetschel about one of his recent clients. Zurich prosecutors went after an angler whose ten-minute battle with a pike, they said, was unfair to the pike. [AP]
The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled that sending the Bolivian man back to his homeland would breach his human rights because he was entitled to a “private and family life”, and joint ownership of a pet was evidence that he was fully settled in this country. …
The Bolivian’s identity has not been disclosed and even the name of the pet cat was blanked out in official court papers to protect its privacy.
Delivering her decision on the case, which is thought to have cost the taxpayer several thousand pounds, Judith Gleeson, a senior immigration judge, joked in the official written ruling that the cat “need no longer fear having to adapt to Bolivian mice”. …
More: Rougblog (“We are all familiar with the term “anchor baby,” but the “anchor cat” is a new concept for me.”)
One hopes Prof. Sunstein has rethought this one by now [Christopher Beam, Slate; related here and here]