CaliforniaCorruption.com
Ventura
In August 2004 SHARK Investigator Pat Vinet documented the abusive and illegal treatment of rodeo animals at the Ventura County Fair when she videotaped a number of instances of painful tail twisting. An animal's tail is an extension of its spinal column, a long sequence of joints and highly sensitive nerve endings. It clearly causes a great deal of pain when twisted, raked, or bent, and therefore qualifies as "torture" or "torment" enumerated in the California statute.
If you have doubts about the sensitivity of joints, just ask someone to twist your arm or any other joint of your choosing. If twisting and even breaking tails weren't painful, the rodeo operators wouldn't bother to do it. Like hot prodding, tail torture hurts and terrifies the animals so that they will bolt out of the chutes. This torment is committed merely for the entertainment of rodeo fans.
There is no question that twisting, raking, and bending of animals' tails is illegal according to California Penal Code 597 (b) which states:
“... every person who overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance, drink, or shelter, cruelly beats, mutilates, or cruelly kills any animal, or causes or procures any animal to be so… is, for every such offense, guilty of a crime punishable as a misdemeanor or as a felony or alternatively punishable as a misdemeanor or a felony and by a fine of not more than twenty thousand dollars ($20,000).”
It's a very simple and straightforward legal situation, but we've run into the problem of local politics trumping judicial impartiality. Ventura County Deputy District Attorney Tom Connors is apparently too afraid of making enemies of Ventura County Fair organizers and its sponsors to do his job. Instead of coming clean and admitting that he won't press charges for fear of political ramifications, Connors claims that the above statute says that he can't prosecute unless there is endangerment to animals’ lives. When Investigator Vinet told Connors that she's read the law and that's not what it says at all, he changed his story and said that it is an appeal court opinion -- People v. Speegle -- that states that an animal's life must be in danger.
We checked out the appellate court opinion Connors is using as his excuse and have also consulted an attorney well versed in California animal law. Connors’ claim that he can’t prosecute the tail torturers is absolutely false. The California Court of Appeal, Third District said nothing of the kind in the opinion it handed down in People v. Speegle (1997). Furthermore, in a subsequent appellate court decision, Coalition For Heallthy and Humane Business Practices v. Never Ending Quails, et.al. (2000), the judges very clearly declared their position on animal endangerment as it pertains to 597 (b):
We find no language in Penal Code section 597, subdivision (b) that requires proof of danger to an animal's life as an element of the offense. Moreover, it would be inconsistent with the legislative intent underlying the anti-cruelty statutes to limit their application to those cases presenting a risk to the animal's life. As stated in People v. Untiedt, supra, 42 Cal. App. 3d at p. 554, "[t]he obvious purpose of these statutes [Penal Code section 597 through 597 y] is to prevent the active or passive infliction of unnecessary or unjustifiable pain or suffering, or cruelty, on animals by their owner, or keeper or others." The infliction of pain or suffering on animals will come within the legislative purpose of the statutes whether or not it involves endangerment to the animal's life.
Lastly, appellant correctly points out that the trial court erred in construing Penal Code section 597, subdivision (b), as requiring proof of actions causing "danger to the animal's life." The trial court relied on People v. Speegle (1997) 53 Cal. App. 4th 1405, in so construing the statute. We do not, however, read the Speegle decision as authority for adding this requirement to the statutory definition of the offense. It is true that the decision quoted a jury instruction that included endangerment to the animal's life as an element of the offense, but the decision did not review this part of the jury instruction and therefore should not be considered as authority for such an interpretation of the statute.
We have presented Mr. Connors with a copy of this appellate decision and have called him down on his deception. Not to be dissuaded by mere facts, however, he’s sticking with his original story. It is still his "belief" that his "interpretation" is correct.
It's not a matter of "belief." It is not a matter of "interpretation". Nor is it Connors' job to interpret the laws. That's what appellate court judges are for, and they have made it clear that endangerment to an animal's life plays no part in California's anticruelty statutes, and to pretend otherwise violates the intentions of the those who authored the law. Penal Code 597 (b) says what it says, and it doesn't say anything about life endangerment being an element of an anticruelty offense. Period.
We know this. Connors knows this. His refusal to do his job has nothing to do with legal scholarship and everything to do with local politics. The truth is that the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office doesn't want to offend the Ventura County Fair or the local businesses that sponsor the fair. SHARK has also heard from sources within county government that the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office routinely refuses to prosecute animal abuse cases.
SHARK doesn’t want people to blindly believe what we put on our website about the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office. That’s why we have asked Connors and his boss, District Attorney Greg Totten, to state their reason for refusing to prosecute this case in writing. If they do, we will post their entire position. If the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office honestly believes this appeals court decision is valid, there doesn't seem to be any reason why they should object to putting it on paper. So far, however, they haven’t, and we predict that they won’t.
Please contact these very reluctant public servants and urge them to do their job and bring law-breakers to justice, or explain in writing why they won’t.
Tom Connors, Deputy District Attorney
Ventura County District Attorney's Office
800 S. Victoria Ave.
Ventura, CA 93003
Phone: (805) 654-3991
Fax: (805) 654-3850
jt.connnors@mail.co.ventura.ca.us
Please also contact his boss:
Gregory D. Totten, District Attorney
Ventura County District Attorney's Office
800 S. Victoria Ave.
Ventura, CA 93003
Phone: (805) 654-3990
Fax: (805) 654-3850
gd.totten@mail.co.ventura.ca.us
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