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Your Biting Dog Can Land You in Jail -- for Life!
First degree murder charges for deaths by dog bite.
Posted May 5, 2011
A new law passing through the legislature of the state of Texas has dog owners concerned. It is a reflection of the mounting distress that the public has about dog bites. A particular concern has to do with fatalities that are caused by dog attacks and this seems to be the direct result of lurid press coverage of such events. House Bill 1389 passed with an overwhelming vote of 123 to 7, and is now being sent on to the state senate. It deals with these cases where an individual dies as a result of an attack by a dog. Specifically it declares such a death to be a class I felony which is charged against the dog's owner. A class I felony has a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
There are some restrictions, however. Specifically the victim must be under 17 years of age or over 65 years of age. In addition, the owner must be negligent in his care and control of the dog and the dog must have been previously determined to be a vicious animal. If that is not the case, the dog bite death is considered to be a class II felony which can result in many years in prison for the dog owner.
Texas is not the first state to consider such harsh penalties against the owners of biting dogs. In many states it is possible, in the eyes of the law, to murder a person with a dog, and for that murder to qualify as a first degree murder. For example, in Cleveland, Ohio, Jeffrey David Mann was convicted of murder for setting a pit bull on the woman he lived with, a 28-year-old mother of two, who died as a result of the mauling in September 1992. Interestingly, this pit bull was referred to as "otherwise friendly" -- as are virtually all of the pit bulls that have killed or seriously mauled human beings.
First degree murder charges against the owner of a dog are, however rare, but other homicide convictions are less so. For example in Geary County, Kansas, in April 1997, a young boy was killed by a pair of Rottweilers. Its owner, Sabine Davidson, was found guilty of second-degree murder because there was evidence that she had trained the dogs to be aggressive.
Whether the charge is murder or manslaughter often depends upon the judgment of the prosecutor. Technically, manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice or forethought. However the law accepts the idea of implied malice, which could include a failure to act, such as not feeding a baby until it starves to death. Thus a person might be convicted of second-degree murder on an implied malice case if he or she left the front gate of their yard open or unlatched. It would require that the person knew, for example, that the front yard has pit bulls in it, that the pit bulls were trained to attack human beings, or had a habit of attacking human beings, that the pit bulls were capable of killing human beings, that the front yard had a gate that would permit the pit bulls to escape the yard if the gate were left open, and that children might be walking past the open gate. That was the prosecution's theory in the Cash Carson prosecution. Prosecutors filed second degree murder charges against the caretaker of two dogs that mauled 10-year-old Cash Carson to death in Newberry Springs, California, on April 29, 2000. Joseph Chiaveta was also charged with involuntary manslaughter. In that case, the jury found the defendant not guilty of second degree murder (but guilty of manslaughter) because there was no evidence that the dogs were known to be vicious or trained to fight, attack or kill.
Most commonly, if any charge is to be brought against a dog owner is dog kills a person, that charge will be manslaughter. This usually occurs if the individual is negligent, doesn't recognize obvious problems, and acts in a manner that ignores possible danger to others. An example is a case in November 1986 where three dogs jumped through a broken window and killed a young boy in Decatur, Georgia. The owner of the dogs was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
There is another form of manslaughter charge which, although it appears to be sensible, can sometimes get unwitting dog owners in deep trouble. This is where a person who violates a law can be convicted of manslaughter if, in the course of that violation, another person dies. However, the nature of that violation can be quite minor. For example, if one lives in a community which has been a bylaws that require a dog to be leashed, and your dog is off leash and kills someone, that is grounds for manslaughter. Furthermore, some municipalities have laws which require the owner to prevent harm to any individual by their dog. For example the South San Francisco municipal code states "Every owner or possessor of a dog shall at all times prevent such dog from biting or physically harassing any person engaged in a lawful act, or interfering with the lawful use of public or private property." That means that the very fact that your dog has killed an individual is evidence that you have violated this municipal law, and therefore you can be charged with manslaughter.
Although this suggests that your dog opens you up to serious felony charges if it is vicious, in some respects the introduction of rather draconian new laws may well be an overreaction. We've been dealing with cases where a death results from the action of a dog, however on average, the annual death rate due to dog bites in the United States tends to range between 12 and 14 per year. This means that people are 40 times more likely to die from a direct lightning stroke than from a dog bite. Still it should serve as a word of caution if you have a biting or aggressive dog.
Stanley Coren is the author of many books including: Born to Bark, The Modern Dog, Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses? The Pawprints of History, How Dogs Think, How To Speak Dog, Why We Love the Dogs We Do, What Do Dogs Know? The Intelligence of Dogs, Why Does My Dog Act That Way? Understanding Dogs for Dummies, Sleep Thieves, The Left-hander Syndrome
Copyright SC Psychological Enterprises Ltd. May not be reprinted or reposted without permission
