Best Strategy For Dealing With An Animal Cruelty Case In Los Angeles County
As you might guess, animal cruelty is a severe charge in Los Angeles and probably anywhere in California. A vast political stigma is attached to these cases, and prosecutors and judges treat them very harshly.
Of course, the prosecutors will first have to have the evidence to prove that you committed the crime of animal cruelty before you could be convicted and punished for it. If they do have the proof, though, you'll need one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the field to come up with a successful result that considers your freedom, reputation, rights, and everything you hold dear in your life.
Depending on the severity of the animal cruelty charges, the prosecutors can take these cases so severely that I've seen them attempting to send people to prison based on animal cruelty-related charges in the Superior Courts in Los Angeles County.
Suppose an animal is killed during an animal cruelty case. In that case, the prosecutors will seek severe punishment and pressure the judges to get the conviction and prison time for the defendant.
Animal cruelty under California Penal Code Section 597 can manifest itself in several different ways. It ranges from actually inflicting some force against an animal to causing an injury or even death. It can also be caused by omission – not caring for your animal, leaving it in the sun, or neglecting it by not feeding it.
I've seen a number of different cases filed over the course of 25 years in defending animal cruelty cases, which make it clear to me that the legislature, politicians, and the public have put a lot of heavy pressure on the police and prosecutors to deal with these cases swiftly and harshly.
Defending An Animal Cruelty Case In Los Angeles County
When defending an animal cruelty case in Los Angeles County, each case spins on its facts. Whether somebody can be found guilty of an animal cruelty case in Los Angeles will depend on whether the prosecutors have the evidence.
Sometimes, the evidence is circumstantial or a process of elimination. For example, an animal is neglected, and then either a neighbor calls the police or some other force causes the police to become involved. The police bring it to the prosecutor's attention, and they can tell that this animal has not been taken care of.
If you have an animal, it will be considered animal cruelty if you do not take care of it and ensure that it is adequately fed, correctly cared for, and not neglected or abused. Defenses to these types of cases will depend on the facts of the case.
Sometimes, some hidden force causes some injury to an animal, which the defendant is not responsible for. Of course, you will need your criminal defense attorney to get your version of events across to the police, prosecutors, judges, and even a jury, if necessary, to adequately defend you in an animal cruelty case.
What If The Prosecutors Have Evidence That I Did Commit Animal Cruelty?
Mitigation packages can be put together in animal cruelty cases to help mitigate some potential punishments prosecutors can seek. If it is a first offense, and there's an argument that it's not entirely the defendant's default, then certain things can be done to mitigate the circumstances—earn misdemeanors and keep yourself out of jail or prison.
What I like to do is put together a mitigation package. We gather all the good character information about the client—whether they have a job, a family, or friends who know what a good person they are—and then present that to the prosecutor and the judge.
Other angles can be used, like restitution community service that can mitigate the circumstances and hopefully put the person charged with animal cruelty in a situation where they can earn a misdemeanor and, ultimately, earn a dismissal of the case so that their record can be protected for the future.
The best strategy that I see is having you sit down with somebody like me, going over all the facts and circumstances of your case, being honest, not leaving anything out, and not putting your own spin on it. Then, we can really sit down and figure out what the best course of action is.
