Kristen Lindsey case: District Attorney could prosecute on a lesser charge bypassing Grand Jury

My apologies for hammering away at the Kristen Lindsey case but it needs to be revisited and reinvigorated so that justice is done. At present, to many people, it appears that justice is waiting to be done. The Grand Jury came up with the decision not to prosecute Lindsey but we don’t know what evidence was presented to them (except that it wasn’t the full, available evidence) and it is up the District Attorney (DA) to decide what evidence is presented to a Grand Jury.

The outcome of a Grand Jury is in the hands of the DA and the public has no right to know what happened and how good a job the DA did or if he presented biased evidence to the jury. There is an application to see the evidence in the Lindsey case but the outcome of that is uncertain. The public cannot appeal Grand Jury decisions. They are final. It is astonishing that they cannot be appealed. In the UK Grand Juries were abolished in 1933 and today a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service (the CPS) can be reviewed and overturned; a much more flexible and secure process, I feel.

How do we get the DA to take another look at the Kristen Lindsey case? It is extremely difficult to find a way forward. Thanks to the excellent work by TIGER’S JUSTICE TEAM we know that full evidence was not presented to the Grand Jury.

We know that the charge against her was a felony (a more serious charge than a misdemeanour). As I understand it the charge would have been under Texas criminal code:

Sec. 42.092. CRUELTY TO NONLIVESTOCK ANIMALS

(b) A person commits an offense if the person intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly:

(2) without the owner’s effective consent, kills, administers poison to, or causes serious bodily injury to an animal;

This is a state felony and the decision to proceed to prosecution by trial has to go to a Grand Jury.

However, the DA can proceed on his own and prosecute a person through the criminal courts bypassing the Grand Jury if Lindsey is charged with a lesser offence, a misdemeanour.

Under the Texas criminal code, the following offence is a misdemeanour:

(b) A person commits an offense if the person intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly:

6) without the owner’s effective consent, causes bodily injury to an animal;

In other words if Lindsey is charged with causing bodily injury to the cat called Tiger, then the DA’s office could take her to court.

This begs the question whether this can be done at this stage. I don’t see an obstacle to it. It is a fresh charge. It is something new. Also the principle of double jeopardy does not apply in this instance as the matter has not be tried in a criminal court..

Is a charge of causing bodily harm viable? I believe it is. Firstly, a lot of people have been saying that Tiger was alive after he was shot with the arrow. If his death was not instantaneous, then it could be argued he suffered bodily harm. It may not even be relevant that he was alive for a while after being shot with the arrow. It is clearly beyond doubt that he suffered bodily harm which caused death.

The other obstacles to a successful prosecution have, I believe, been cleared away and therefore the DA should be encouraged to re-charge Lindsey with this lesser offence.

If the DA fails to exercise his discretion on the lesser charge a writ of mandamus issued out of the state’s supreme court can be served on him to force him to act.

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