The Massachusetts animal cruelty law (M.G.L. c. 272, Ā§ 77) imposes a hefty sentence and/or fine on anyone who violates it.Ā A defendantās first violation could result in a prison sentence up to 7 years and a maximum fine of $5,000.Ā The punishment is enhanced for any subsequent violation: up to ten years in prison with a fine not to exceed $10,000.
(As a point of reference, an assault and battery against a fellow human being is punishable by a maximum sentence of just 2.5 years.)
In most cases animal cruelty is exactly what weād imagine it to beāa person inflicting unnecessary harm on an animal. But the animal-cruelty statute also contains the following provision:
Whoever, having the charge or custody of an animal, either as owner or otherwiseā¦unnecessarily fails to provide it with [a] sanitary environment…shall be punished.
The Supreme Judicial Court took this provision of the statute under consideration in Commonwealth v. Erickson, 74 Mass. App. Ct. 172 (2009).
First, the SJC ruled that the sanitary-environment provision does not require any malicious or willful intent on the part of the defendant. If the defendant intended the acts which resulted in the unsanitary environment, that is sufficient for a conviction under the states.
The part of the statute under consideration here similarly does not mandate proof of a specific intent to cause harm. Rather, the statute simply requires that a defendant intentionally failed to provide a sanitary environment or proper nutrition for an animal.
Put another way,
It is not necessary that the defendant knew that [she] was breaking the law, but it is necessary that [she] intended the act to occur which constitutes the offense.
Next, the court held that an animal did not need to endure pain or suffering as a result of the unsanitary conditions in order for the defendant to be found guilty under the law.
The defendant also argues that the statute requires proof of harm or risk of harm and, in turn, that such proof was lacking here. The statute however, contains no such requirement. The defendant was convicted of failing to provide proper sanitary conditions and of failing to provide proper nutrition for the dog. More was not required.
So what exactly constitutes an unsanitary living environment for animals? In the Erickson case, the defendant āseemingly abandonedā her cats and dogs inside her apartment. The animals were found ālying in their own excrement in a stench-filled apartment with trash and an overflowing litter box.ā
According to the SJC,
These circumstances plainly permit the inference that the defendant intentionally failed to provide the animals with a sanitary environment.
In a similar opinion written by the Appeals Court in 2006, the justices concluded that large amounts of feces present in the animalās living space could be sufficient for a conviction under the animal-cruelty statute:
There was abundant evidence to support the defendant’s conviction on two counts of deprivation of a sanitary environment…The officers testified that there was a large “accumulation” or “days worth” of fecal matter in the kennels. There was also evidence that at least two of the dogs were found shut in the kennels and forced to move around and step into their own feces. The defendant argues that to be found guilty of the charges there would have to be at least a week’s worth of fecal matter to rise to the level of animal cruelty. We disagree. A rational trier of fact could have found that each element of the crime charged was proved beyond a reasonable doubt from the evidence presented. There is no rule that states how many days of an accumulation of feces is unacceptable. The fact that a large amount of feces existed can prove that an unsanitary environment exists, notwithstanding the fact that there was shelter.
Commonwealth v. Bishop, 67 Mass.App.Ct. 1116 (2006). Citations omitted.