Today’s question: Should felony charges for animal cruelty have the potential to imprison offenders for life?

Torturers move on to bigger prey later

Felony charges for animal torture are finally making headlines as states in the throes of the animal-cruelty debate pass bills that slap felony charges on animal sadists.

In states where felony charges for animal cruelty exist, some jurors balk at the justice meted out over puppies, such as an Atlanta juror who refused to deliberate on the potential 90-year jail term for two young men. That caused a mistrial.

While a 90-year sentence may seem harsh, so was the crime. Joshua and Justin Moulder allegedly duct-taped the puppy’s nose and mouth, hog-tied its legs, doused it with paint and then baked it to death in an oven.

Georgia laws incur a maximum of five years for aggravated cruelty to animals. But this case was so egregious, the potential sentence resulted from multiple charges including burglary.

For those who cringe at felony charges for animal cruelty, they argue that there’s a difference between the life of a human sadist and an innocent puppy. I agree: Let’s keep the puppy.

Puppies are cuddly, more productive and lower human blood pressure, while there is ample evidence that sadists who torture innocent animals move on to bigger prey. Jeffery Dahmer is one sick example. Disgruntled teenagers who gun down classmates are others.

Another is Victor Goodman, says Fulton County Senior Assistant District Attorney Laura Janssen, who prosecuted the Moulder brothers.

The 17-year-old poured gasoline on a stray dog and set her on fire. He pled guilty in 2001 for aggravated animal cruelty. “The judge sentenced him to five years, to serve two. In 2006, he was indicted for murder,” says Janssen.

There are some who still question harsh felony charges for animal cruelty if it means a single human life should waste away in jail.

Janssen would remind us: “Pain is pain. Animals bleed, cry and struggle and defend themselves against violence just like people do.

“You can put a criminal on probation, but that’s not going to teach him empathy. A lot of people look at young criminals and say, ‘Give them another chance.’

“But you have to put these criminals in the context of the research, studies and what the histories of other criminals have proven to be true,” says Janssen. “The violence will escalate.”

Value human life more than animals

Animal cruelty deserves severe penalties, but it sets up a real problem if we start comparing a puppy’s life to that of a human being.

Both have value, and both deserve protection from abuse, but we simply can’t equate them.

And while it’s true that many murderers started on animals, most people who are cruel to animals don’t become murderers. We can’t use life sentence-type penalties to prevent an animal abuser from becoming a human one.

Victor Goodman and Justin Moulder both were minors at the time of those animal-cruelty incidents. It seems extreme to punish a minor with a life sentence for something he does to an animal, however awful it was.

Instead, authorities should take animal cruelty as a swift wake-up call to not only mete out punishment but also to intervene and get the kid help so that he doesn’t (as Goodman eventually did) progress to murder.

Equating a human life with that of an animal also starts the slippery slope toward outlawing medical research on animals. As much as I feel bad for the puppy, I felt far worse for the Virginia infant who was killed when Mom put baby in the microwave – and in that case, Mom got only five years.

At least the Senate is not ignoring the human side of this issue. Surprisingly, Democrat Dianne Feinstein championed a bill with harsh penalties for activists who threaten or harm those using animal research.

For once I agree with Feinstein, and so do many others. According to a 2004 Gallup Poll, 62 percent of people find it “morally acceptable” to use animals in research – and these aren’t all mice and rats. In 2000, for example, it included 75,000 dogs and cats.

As former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders put it, “The use of animals in biomedical research and testing has been, and will continue to be, absolutely critical to the progress against AIDS and a wide range of other applications in both humans and animals.”

Americans value animals. Each year, we spend $36 billion on pets. But each year, we also spend $45 billion on biomedical research.

We exude compassion for animals, but – as we should – we value human life more.

Diane Glass is a writer and freethinker with a B.A. and M.A. in comparative religion. E-mail: dglass@ajc.com. Shaunti Feldhahn is a Christian author and speaker and married mother of two children. E-mail: scfeldhahn@yahoo.com. Both women have degrees from Harvard.

By Diane Glass, Shaunti Feldhahn

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Opinion. Tags for this post: Columnist/Guest, Diane Glass, Opinion-Columnist/Guest, page-a09, Shaunti Feldhahn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.