Northpinellas: Animals may get quicker appeals

Pinellas County Animal Services declared the Great Dane dangerous and sentenced it to death after the incident in Palm Harbor on Labor Day 1995. Beethoven's owner and a legal team challenged that sentence, turning Beethoven into a cause celebre and plunging Pinellas into what is thought to be the longest-running appeal of an animal's fate in the state.

While 10-year-old Beethoven whiles away his golden years in a 6-by-12-foot cage at Animal Services in Largo, the county is looking for ways to prevent years-long cases like this.

Pinellas officials say that they plan to ask legislators this year to amend the state's "dangerous dog" law to speed up the appeals process. Although county officials are reluctant to say that Beethoven inspired the request, it is clear that the dog's case is driving the effort.

"We can't have these going on for five years," said Christy Donovan Pemberton, the county's attorney on the Beethoven case. "It's not fair to the dog. It's not fair to the victim. It's not fair to the citizens who are paying $10,000 in boarding fees (for the dog)."

Understandably, Beethoven's attorneys feel differently. The county's efforts to shorten the appeals process do not serve the dogs' interests, said attorney David Plante.

"What they're trying to do is truncate the process and make it so they can destroy a dog with more ease," Plante said.

Florida law gives counties some latitude to determine what constitutes a dangerous dog and what penalties the owner and the dog should face. In Pinellas County, if a dog bites a person or another domestic animal without provocation, the dog is declared dangerous and is euthanized.

State law outlines the process that must be followed to reach that conclusion.

Pinellas County would like legislators to cut one of the steps from the process.

Here is the current procedure: After investigating a complaint about a dog, Animal Services officials are expected to make an initial determination as to whether the dog is dangerous. The owner can request a hearing, usually in front of a retired judge, before a determination is made. If the owner still is unhappy with the hearing officer's decision, the case can go to county court.

Pinellas officials want the state to dispense with the hearing requirement. Instead, an owner unhappy with Animal Services' initial determination could go directly to county court.

It seems a small thing, but in Beethoven's case it made a big difference.

When Beethoven's owner challenged her Great Dane's dangerous-dog label in 1995, Animal Services shipped the case directly to county court, not realizing that it needed to offer owner Lorraine Blackwood (who was then Lorraine Sabates) an administrative hearing.

Two years later, three Circuit Court judges ruled that the county essentially needed to start Beethoven's case over again by providing that administrative hearing.

The dog's death sentence was upheld in that hearing, but it bought Beethoven's legal team three more years of appeals.

The hearing is an important step in the process, and Pinellas officials should not hurry to get rid of it, Plante said.

"As people challenge what they (county officials) are doing, the courts are finally ruling and forcing them to comply with the precepts of due process," Plante said. "And they don't like that."

Pemberton and Dr. Kenny Mitchell, the county's director of Animal Services, cite several reasons besides the time-saving element for wanting to end the hearings.

The retired judges who hear those cases usually cost $100 to $150 an hour, and the dog owner is expected to pay for the judge's time, Pemberton said. Sometimes the owner cannot afford it, or simply does not pay, and the county gets stuck with the bill, she said. Dog owners who go straight to county court can ask for a fee waiver, she said.

Also, Mitchell points out, Animal Services is not the best place for something resembling a trial. It lacks the security of a courtroom.

"Some of these hearings are very contentious, to the point where you need bailiffs to protect the heated parties," Mitchell said.

But it isn't fair for Animal Services to declare a dog dangerous -- and start what could be a lengthy legal process -- without offering the dog's owner the chance to present evidence to the contrary, Plante said.

And it's not as if the county is overwhelmed with requests for hearings. In 2000, Pinellas Animal Services declared 22 animals dangerous enough to be euthanized. Seven owners appealed that determination. Hearing officers ruled for the county in five of those cases.

Plante objects to another of the county's requests, one also that seems to stem from the Beethoven case.

When the county houses a dangerous dog, its owner is responsible for the $5-per-day boarding fee. Beethoven's owner has paid for only one day, and the unpaid fees are approaching the $10,000 range. Taxpayers likely will foot that bill.

Mitchell would like the state to include a section in the law that equates nonpayment of fees with abandonment. Then, if an owner has effectively abandoned a dog, Animal Services could euthanize it even if appeals on the animal's dangerous dog status are continuing.

Plante said his client, Mrs. Blackwood, should not have to pay Animal Services for seizing her dog, especially for the first two years when she was denied her administrative hearing.

"Why should the animal owner, who has already for that two-year period been deprived of the right to have the dog, also now be liable to the county for boarding fees for that dog?" he asked.

Dr. Larry Hawk, president and CEO of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, disagrees. If the owner refuses to pay for the animal's care, the county should be allowed to carry out the sentence, he said.

"If the owner is not willing to pay a moderate boarding fee, which this is, at some point they do relinquish the animal," Hawk said. "It's hitting somebody else's pocket, and that's not right. It's the owner's responsibility. It's their dog. Their dog bit someone."

The ASPCA supports euthanasia only if an animal is incurably ill, severely injured, mentally disturbed or considered unadoptable, as is Beethoven, according to its policies. But locking up an animal for years at a time is hardly a humane alternative, said Hawk, who said Pinellas County needs to grease its process.

"They've got to do something to the process to shorten it. No way an animal should be left to languish for five years," he said. "That's absurd. Animals are part of our family. Do I want my family member, who has a limited life to begin with, to spend half his life in jail?"

Although lawmakers have not yet stepped up to sponsor Pinellas County's proposals, the county has support for the legal changes from Polk and Alachua counties, Pemberton said. And the Florida Animal Control Association considers speeding up the appeals process a priority, said Mitchell, the association's president.

Florida is not the only state that has grappled with dangerous-dog litigation.

Taro, a 100-pound Akita from New Jersey, was declared vicious and sentenced to death two months after biting a 10-year-old family member on Christmas Day 1990. Taro spent nearly three years on death row before Gov. Christine Todd Whitman signed an executive order sparing the animal's life.

Although Beethoven's case is thought to be Florida's longest, Mitchell said he heard about a chihuahua in Seattle that spent 10 years condemned to death.

St. Louis County's Animal Control spent eight months defending its decision to declare two malamutes dangerous before a judge overturned that decision, said Mary Metzner, a shelter supervisor there and president of the National Animal Control Association.

"No judge wants to order an animal euthanized," said Metzner, who considers locking up the animals worse. "No matter how kind and loving your kennel people are . . . it's just not fair to the animal."

Any changes made by the Florida Legislature this year probably would not affect Beethoven's case, which could go on indefinitely. On Thursday, the dog's attorneys appealed to Gov. Jeb Bush to override Pinellas County's death sentence and grant clemency to Beethoven.

"I go to national meetings and I get, 'How's Beethoven?' " said Mitchell. "Beethoven is going to be my claim to fame.

"I don't know who's going to go first. We're both gray. It's a close race."

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

Lawyers ask Bush to save dog from death penalty (January 12, 2001)

Appeals drag as dog ages (July 5, 2000)

Dangerous dog ordinance wins okay in Pinellas (February 17, 1999)

3-year fight to save dog's life goes on (June 24, 1998)

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