There is one aspect at least of the law regarding animal cruelty in Texas which does not make sense to me and I would like someone to explain it, please.
It concerns Texas Penal Code-Penal 42.092. Cruelty to non-livestock animals.
If you scroll down this part of the statue you’ll see the following clause:
“A person commits an offence if the person intentionally, knowingly or recklessly…. without the owner’s effective consent, kills, administers poison to, or causes serious bodily injury to an animal;”
Then further down there is another clause which states:
“Without the owner’s effective consent, causes bodily injury to an animal;”
These sections imply that the owner of a cat can ask another person to poison their cat or cause serious injury to their cat and under these circumstances the other person will not be prosecuted for the crime of animal cruelty.
However, if the cat’s owner administers poison to his cat or causes the cat serious bodily injury he is liable to be prosecuted for animal cruelty.
I would like someone to explain this anomaly because clearly I’ve missed something. This clause about giving consent must have a purpose behind it otherwise legislators would not have put it into the statute. I can’t, at present, work out what that purpose is. When would the owner of a cat for instance ask another person to poison their cat, to cause that cat extreme suffering. That must be an act of cruelty both by the owner and the person instructed by the owner. Both of them are in league together causing cruelty to an animal. Therefore I do not see how one of them can be excepted from the law.
This aspect of the law might apply to a landowner who allows another person to go onto their land to kill feral cats for example. But then in my opinion this would clash with other aspects of Texas legislation regarding animal cruelty.
I genuinely wonder whether the animal welfare statutory laws in Texas need rewriting.
Note: Comments by Woody will be unread and deleted.
I believe at one point she tried to say Tiger was stalking her chickens. Or rabid. Her defense changes with each failure with also highlights that she is a liar.
Also important is the fact that one veterinarian testified that Tiger may have still been alive in that photo due to his body position.
You also have to consider the disturbing mental picture of a veterinary professional skunking around her back yard with a bow and arrow looking for something to kill. As a vet she knows and likely had access to humane traps.
At one point she tried to say that the arrow was the same as using a captive bolt gun. These are meant to be used on large livestock and require skill and exact placement to be effective. Most vets use them as a last resort when chemical euthanasia is not possible.
Playing fast and loose with laws meant to allow farmers and ranchers to protect their livestock and crops from animals wild and domestic is not going to fly.
I did not miss this section of the law. I deliberately avoided discussing these sections because I wanted to focus on a specific point. The points you make are irrelevant because they were not used by KL’s attorney. I am discussing what the attorney argued. Sorry you are way off the mark.
You missed these too:
Sec. 42.092. CRUELTY TO NONLIVESTOCK ANIMALS.
(d) It is a defense to prosecution under this section that:
(1) the actor had a reasonable fear of bodily injury to the actor or to another person by a dangerous wild animal as defined by Section 822.101, Health and Safety Code; or
(e) It is a defense to prosecution under Subsection (b)(2) or (6) that:
(1) the animal was discovered on the person’s property in the act of or after injuring or killing the person’s livestock animals or damaging the person’s crops and that the person killed or injured the animal at the time of this discovery; or
(2) the person killed or injured the animal within the scope of the person’s employment as a public servant or in furtherance of activities or operations associated with electricity transmission or distribution, electricity generation or operations associated with the generation of electricity, or natural gas delivery.
(f) It is an exception to the application of this section that the conduct engaged in by the actor is a generally accepted and otherwise lawful:
(1) form of conduct occurring solely for the purpose of or in support of:
(A) fishing, hunting, or trapping; or
(B) wildlife management, wildlife or depredation control, or shooting preserve practices as regulated by state and federal law; or
(2) animal husbandry or agriculture practice involving livestock animals.
(g) This section does not create a civil cause of action for damages or enforcement of the section.
If she knew the cat was stalking her own animals, or wildlife, or knew it was stalking and killing native animals deemed game-animals for hunting or trapping, all of those are legal grounds to kill anyone’s cat, even if you know it is owned and don’t ask the owner. Even if the cat was found urinating in someone’s garden, that falls under damaging someone’s crops. That too is legal grounds to kill a cat, owned or not. Animal husbandry also falls under these rules in having to kill someone’s cat if they have any livestock, to prevent their own livestock from stillbirths, miscarriages, and hydrocephaly and microcephaly caused by a stray cat infecting their livestock with Toxoplasma gondii. The #1 cause of dead lambs is cats’ Toxoplasma gondii parasite. Any cats within miles of anyone raising sheep are disposed of by any means possible. This is common-knowledge on all farms and ranches.
Her and her lawyer could have used quite a few of those to prove the legality in killing any cat, owned or not. If the one law she’s using now to prove she legally killed the cat doesn’t work, she has plenty more to choose from.
I am pleased that you have the same thoughts as me. The idea of “effective consent” was put in the statute by someone but they don’t appear to have told us what it means.