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A legislator says Utah is
one of eight states without
strong laws because of a
misperception that a bill
would limit hunting
BY DEBBIE HUMMEL
The Associated Press
A woman bringing three
injured kittens to the animal
shelter said her boyfriend had
been getting free kittens from
listings in the newspaper with
the intent of hurting them.
The animals were burned
and some had broken legs or
tails, said Temma Martin,
spokeswoman for Salt Lake
County Animal Services. Mar-
tin said the woman told her she
had left the relationship and
would testify about what he
had been doing to the kittens in
court.
"In the meantime, she
moved back in with him,"
Martin said.
Martin is worried about the
woman, and her concerns are
valid.
The link between animal
cruelty and domestic violence
is becoming increasingly
clear. Last April, Maine was the
first state to adopt a law
including pets in domestic
protective orders.
"It means that the courts
are acknowledging that (the
abuser) may stop abusing the
wife and the children, but he'll
still scare everyone to death by
abusing the pets in the home,"
said Frank Ascione, a psychol-
ogy professor at Utah State
University.
Ascione has published and
lectured on the link between
animal abuse and other acts of
violence in the home.
"A lot of the incidents
where these activities occur
are in an instance of child
abuse or domestic violence,"
he said. "The animal abuse is
kind of a sentinel for us indi-
cating that there are problems
in the family."
In 2005, the Humane Society
of Utah investigated 305 cases
of animal cruelty or abuse, ac-
cording to the most current
statistics on their Web site.
On May 25, during a fight
with his wife, a Murray man
put his wife's Chihuahua-mix
puppy, Henry, in a 200-degree
oven. Henry suffered
damage to his front paws
and now limps.
It wasn't the only time
Marc Christopher Vincent
had hurt the dog. He was also
accused of chasing and
cornering the dog
with a leaf blower, damaging
one of the dog's eyes,
which later had to be removed,
ac-cording to charging
documents.
Last month, Vincent, 36,
pleaded guilty to a misde-
meanor charge of aggravated
animal cruelty, a second count
was dropped as part of a plea
agreement.
He is scheduled to be sen-
tenced Nov. 6 and faces up to |
one year in jail and a $2,500
fine.
The maximum penalty for
animal cruelty in Utah is a
year in jail if it is charged as a
class A misdemeanor, it can
also be charged as a lower
class B or C misdemeanor. Jail
time is rare.
Animal cruelty in Utah was
only charged as a lower mis-
demeanor until the 1995 death
of a Rottweiler named Dawg.
A Sandy man beat and
kicked the 13-month-old dog in
front of his wife and at least
one child, then dumped the in-
jured animal in a canal behind
his house.
His wife later retrieved the
dog and took it to a veterinary
hospital, where it died of in-
ternal injuries. The man
pleaded guilty to a class C mis-
demeanor animal cruelty
charge and was sentenced
to two months of jail -- three
months would have been the
maximum penalty.
The case caused an outcry
and propelled a bill increasing
penalties through the next
legislative session. But law-
makers fell short of what
animal advocates say is the
ultimate goal: making some
animal cruelty in Utah a felony.
Utah is one of only eight
states that do not have felony
penalties for animal cruelty.
Martin hopes the cases of
Henry's oven-burned paws and
the injured kittens -- one died,
and another is still badly injured
and might require skin grafts --
will again build interest in getting
tougher animal cruelty penalties.
"Each year it hasn't failed in
the Legislature, it's just gotten
help up," Martin said.
In the past two years, the bill
has made it through the House
only to fail in the Senate, said
Rep. Scott Wyatt, R-Logan.
Wyatt sponsored those
attempts and said there is a
different plan this year.
He said he would like to
see it start the process in the
Senate, "and if it can get through
the Senate, I'm going to run it
from there."
He said the problem in the past
has been one of misperception.
"It's an animal cruelty bill, and
they assume that it's an animal right
bill and it's not that," Wyatt said.
Utah, has a long tradition of
hunting, farming and ranching, Wyatt
said, and some worry that it will
interfere with or limit those activities.
But the bill actually strengthens
exemptions for those traditions,
he said.
"Then the bill takes the most
serious of animal abuse, the
intentional prolonged abuse of an
animal, and calls it what it is a
felony," Wyatt said.
"I have this deep abiding
passion to try and move society away
from abuse, and I see this as a
link to that." |