CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office said people who abuse stray cats and dogs should be punished as harshly as those who abuse pets.
That's the distinction they're raising before the Ohio Supreme Court, which is hearing the case of a Cleveland man whose conviction for felony animal cruelty was overturned. Why: The appeals court says prosecutors couldn't prove that the cat the man soaked in bleach was someone's pet.
The case highlights what prosecutors say is a loophole in the state's so-called Goddard Act, which makes serious animal abuse of companion pets a felony. If the state high court upholds the appellate court's ruling, the law would no longer apply to stray dogs, prosecutors said.
An appellate judge who voted to overturn the man's conviction cited George Orwell's “Animal Farm” and called on state lawmakers to rewrite the law.
Judge Sean Gallagher of the 8th District Court of Appeals of Ohio wrote, “At this point, the Orwellian standard that “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others'' unfortunately remains true. ” he wrote.
County prosecutors asked the state high court to reverse the appeals court's decision and find that stray cats and dogs are also protected under the felony statute.
The office met with groups including the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Animal Welfare Foundation of Ohio and the Cleveland Humane League to submit briefs in support of the motion.
“It's our job to hold accountable the people who do this to animals,” said Michael O'Malley, the county's prosecutor.
The entire controversy hinges on how the judge defines the word “custodial.”
kitchen
The case began in October 2022, when Cleveland police were called to a dispute between apartment tenants. The man met officers in the parking lot and told them that another resident, Alonzo Kyles, had sprinkled bleach on the floor of the building's stairwell because there was a cat there.
The man asked Kyles why he couldn't open the door and let him out, to which Kyles replied, “Because I'm scared.”
When officers opened the stairwell door, they could smell bleach. They then discovered a small black male cat lying on its stomach at the bottom of the stairwell, meowing in pain. The cat didn't move.
Officers noticed the cat's fur was wet with bleach and its paws were red and swollen. The cat did not resist or try to escape from the police's grasp. He said it appeared the animal's claws had been removed.
Kyles then entered the stairwell carrying a mop and wearing gloves.
“Are you sane?” one of the officers asked. “This is a totally irrational response.”
“I couldn't get the cat out of here,” Kyles said.
The officer holding the cat asked Kyles why he couldn't put the cat outside. Kyles said she was scared of cats.
“Okay, well, this poor animal drank bleach and is probably going to die. Good job,” the officer said.
Officers took the cat to West Park Animal Hospital, where it was treated for a leg ulcer.
A grand jury indicted Kyles on one count of felony cruelty to companion animals, passed in 2016.
The veterinarian who treated the cat said at Kyles' trial in November 2022 that the cat tolerated baths much better than most feral cats, but was slightly underweight and had not been cleaned. I testified.
Kyles chose to have Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Nancy Margaret Russo render the verdict instead of a jury. Russo, an avid dog lover, found Kyles guilty of felony animal cruelty and sentenced him to nine months in prison.
defining words
Kyles appealed to the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals, where Judges Emanuela Groves, Frank Celebrese Jr. and Gallagher held that Goddard's Law only applied to animals in captivity.
The law was passed in 2016 and named after famous Cleveland media personality Dick Goddard. Cruelty of a companion animal was made a fifth-degree felony. The state still has a misdemeanor animal cruelty law that makes it illegal to abuse all other animals.
The Felony Act defines a companion pet as “any animal kept in a dwelling, and any dog or cat, regardless of where it is kept, including in a pet store.”[.]”
Mr. Groves wrote in the majority opinion that the key word in this law is “maintenance.” But lawmakers did not include a definition for the word in the law, so Groves used the Merriam-Webster Dictionary's definition of the word. “Having control. to take care of. “
To obtain a conviction under the Goddard Act, prosecutors must prove that the abused animal was being cared for or under someone's physical control at the time of the abuse, Groves wrote. ing. The fact that the cat was in the apartment building does not mean it is a companion animal, she wrote.
“After a thorough review of the record, this court concludes that the state failed to present sufficient evidence that care was provided to the cat,” Groves wrote. “Thus, the cat was not kept, and the state did not prove the necessary elements that the cat is a 'companion animal.'”
Prosecutors could have charged Kyles under the misdemeanor animal cruelty statute, which applies to all animals, not just those considered pets, Groves wrote. The charge is a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to 90 days in county jail.
In a concurring opinion, Mr. Gallagher agreed that prosecutors had not met the burden on the Legislature to prove that the cat was a pet in order to convict Mr. Kyles of a felony.
Gallagher said that while the misdemeanor “does hardly provide adequate redress for the brutality shown in this matter,” he had no choice but to vote to overturn Kyles' conviction.
Mr. Celebrese agreed with both opinions.
“We protect all cats and dogs.”
In a request for the Ohio Supreme Court to take up the case, Cuyahoga County Assistant Attorney General Tasha Forchione wrote that the 8th District is focusing on the wrong part of the law.
Forchione argued that the appeals court stuck with the word “domesticated” but should have focused on the phrase “any cat or dog, regardless of where it is kept.” Lawmakers clearly intended the law to cover the abuse of all cats and dogs, she said, otherwise it would have read “all cats and dogs in care.” wrote.
“In doing so, the Court of Appeals read the words 'any' and 'irrespective of' out of the statute, placing an additional evidentiary burden on the state,” Forchione wrote.
Prosecutors also pointed to research showing a link between animal abuse and violence against humans as one of the reasons activists and lawmakers pushed to change the law.
“[The law] We protect all cats and dogs from human cruelty, whether owned or not, whether in our care or not,” Forchione wrote. “Because dogs and cats are domestic animals that have adapted over generations to coexist with humans. It doesn't matter whether the dog or cat is feral or not.”
