Arizona Republic: Should People Who Torture Animals Get a Misdemeanor Penalty?

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There was the college student who nearly beat his golden retriever to death with a metal rod.

There was the boyfriend who decapitated his girlfriend’s puppy after she spoke to another man.

There was the family whose dog was found emaciated, dehydrated and too weak to drink from its bucket outside.

“Every day, our emergency team and our medical technicians see heinous acts of crimes against animals,” said Tracey Miller, field operations manager for the Arizona Humane Society. “In 2018 alone, we responded to over 7,400 calls.”

Yet, only the most extreme cases are prosecuted. And even then, the way Arizona classifies animal-cruelty crimes means the worst offenders frequently are convicted of misdemeanors, not felonies.

Animal-rights advocates, including Miller, are again asking the Legislature to change that. For the past few years, they’ve pushed to increase the penalty “cruel mistreatment” of pets — defined as severe abuse, torture or drawn-out killing — from a Class 6 felony to a Class 5 felony.

Courts cannot reduce a Class 5 felony charge to a misdemeanor. Class 5 convictions also carry higher baseline sentences and typically include supervised probation.

Advocates argue the change would even the playing field for domestic animals, as illegally killing livestock is already a Class 5.

“This bill is your opportunity to make Arizona a safer place for people and for pets,” Miller said at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week, where lawmakers voted 4-3 to advance the amended House Bill 2671 to the Senate floor.

Prosecutors: Current penalties fall short
Rebecca Baker, legislative liaison for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, said that while severe cases of animal cruelty are relatively rare, prosecutors have seen “an escalation of violence” in such cases in recent years.

“Time and time again, we are prosecuting incidents of people stomping, shooting, stabbing, burning animals to their death,” she said. “The current penalty in place is not adequate to address the harm done to pets or the loss suffered by animal owners, as well as the threat that these specific offenders pose to our community.”

Several law-enforcement and animal-welfare agencies cite animal cruelty as a strong predictor of domestic violence, child abuse and other violent crimes.

Getting animal abusers on supervised probation, something rarely ordered in a misdemeanor case, is crucial in order to intervene before they become more violent, Baker said.

Bill sponsor Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, also cited “much better opportunities for probation an intensive supervision at the higher charge level” when he testified before the Commerce Committee.