AR-News: GREAT ARTICLE to HELP FOLLOW INFO in OTHER CITIES!!! BUT the other...DOWN w/Judge Turnbach!

[סמדר]

From: Madelyn Filipski shelteralliance at hotmail.com

Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 9:15 AM

Subject: Check this morning's AC Press and Asbury Park Press links

 

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/cape/042204LTPETSA21.cfm

April 22, 2004 

Lower law puts abusive pet owners in doghouse

 

By RICHARD DEGENER Staff Writer, (609) 463-6711, degener at pressofac.com


LOWER TOWNSHIP - Lower law puts abusive pet owners in doghouse

Things are looking up for Fido, Spot, Bullet and all other dogs of any name or breed under an ordinance Township Council adopted this week.

The ordinance approved in a 4-0 vote Monday night requires dog owners to take care of their pets. If they are outside, they must have a doghouse with bedding. If they are chained up, they can only be chained for nine hours within any 24-hour period.

These are just a few of the requirements under an ordinance that exceeds state regulations on such issues as animal cruelty. The ordinance was modeled after! one Galloway Township adopted earlier this year and was promoted by several animal-rights groups.

"State law requires a doghouse but no bedding. A shorthaired dog is not protected by state law," said Linda Gentille, of the Cape May County Animal Shelter Alliance, a group that lobbied for the ordinance.

Gentille said the goal is to get all 16 towns to adopt some version of the ordinance. Lower Township is the first to adopt it, but draft ordinances are making the rounds in other towns. Gentille said Sea Isle City and Ocean City are considering a version that may go a step further by not allowing a dog that has not been spayed to be chained outside.

"A lot of puppies are the result of that. If an animal is there 24 hours a day, it is vulnerable to getting pregnant," Gentille said.

The Lower Township ordinance has been dubbed "Joe's Law" after a boxer that froze to death while chained to a tree outside a Middle

http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,949153,00.html

No excuse for cruelty 

 

Published in the Asbury Park Press 4/22/04 

An Asbury Park Press editorial 

A judge's decision not to require jail time for three men who capped a crime spree by bludgeoning eight birds to death at the Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacey may have satisfied state sentencing guidelines. But the reasons given as the basis for the decision were troubling. 

Superior Court Judge Edward J. Turnbach said he would not sentence Matthew Mercuro, Matthew Ronneberg and Thomas Cavanaugh, all 19, to jail simply to placate the media. And, he said, "I'm sure that drugs and alcohol are what fueled this entire incident." 

The calls for stiff sentences were hardly the exclusive domain of the media. They came from hundreds of citizens outraged by the inhumanity of the attacks and fed up with watching people charged with animal cruelty getting off with nothing but stern looks and lectures. The judge himself called the men's actions "so evil and base that they shocked not only the community, but the state, country and people all over the world." 

Yet, the judge seemed to blame the alcohol and drugs, not the men, for the cruelty. The idea that being under drugs or alcohol should somehow lessen the consequences for antisocial or criminal behavior is disturbing. It may help explain someone's actions, but it should not be used as a mitigating factor. 

Drugs and alcohol alone can't possibly explain the cruelty that took place in May. Mercuro, Ronneberg and Cavanaugh entered the zoo for abused and neglected animals by jumping over a fence, then pummeled the animals with a rake, a shovel and a piece of pipe found on the grounds. They killed five exotic, flightless birds -- three emus and two rheas -- as well as two Peking ducks and a multicolored duck. 

That same night, they stoned a goose to death at a county park, spray-painted swastikas and set fires at a paintball business, and smashed a window at a church. 

The alcohol and drugs didn't do that. Mercuro, Ronneberg and Cavanaugh did. The last thing society needs is another rationale for inhumane behavior -- particularly one supplied by a judge.

 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20040424/3cf06cc5/attachment.html