Should the species of the victim influence punishment?
Should defendants convicted of animal abuse get jail time? The debate pits animal-rights activists against lawyers who contend a jail sentence can be disproportionate to the crime when an animal is the victim.
The New York Times covered the issue raised by the prosecution of Brooklyn man Andre Robinson, 22, whose trial for misdemeanor animal cruelty is scheduled to begin on Wednesday. Robinson was charged after he was shown in a YouTube video kicking a cat up and over a small fence. Prosecutors have not offered a plea bargain and animal-rights activists are calling for jail time.
“Had it been a person he kicked,” the Times says, Robinson “most likely would have received a quick plea bargain requiring no jail time—if, that is, he had even been arrested.”
Robinson spoke with the New York Daily News last week in an impromptu interview in a courthouse hallway, despite his lawyer’s advice to keep quiet. Robinson told the newspaper the cat was apparently interested in Chinese food he was carrying and the animal was bothering him. “I was trying to shoo it away,” Robinson said, “but it didn’t go away. I figured if I kicked it, it would go away.” He added that the cat appeared fine after the kick and it has since been adopted.
Meanwhile, prosecutors and law enforcement agencies are ramping up their focus on animal cruelty, the Times says. The FBI plans to track animal abuse as a separate crime, and in New York City, police have formed an Animal Cruelty Investigation Squad. Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson, whose office is prosecuting Robinson, said his new administration is “going to take these cases seriously.”
Animal rights activists say animal cruelty prosecutions are up nationwide. The get-tough attitude is justified, they say, given the link between animal cruelty and domestic violence.
Theodore Simon, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, counters that individuals should not be punished for potential future misconduct. “To do so would be to punish a person for a ‘crime’ that has not occurred and was not committed,” he told the Times.
