Breed Bans = vague laws that impact good people

 Shortly after I finished Thursday''s post, I got an update about Leonard Shelton.

Mr. Shelton is the member of our military that came home from serving our country in Iraq, and then had to deal with the city of Lakewood, OH,badgering him about the type of dog he was walking because they claimed the dog was a pit bull (which are banned in Lakewood). They confiscated his dog.

I'm happy to report that Mr. Shelton and his dog Roscoe are back together...and that Mr. Shelton has moved from the city of Lakewood so he will no longer be harrassed.

While it is great that they are back together, and Shelton can go on trying to get back to life as usual, it's appalling that one of our war veterans would be harrassed by animal control because of the way his dog looks...and be forced to move because of it.

Amazing. I'm sure everyone in Lakewood can hold their heads high over the way the law is being used and defended.  I know I'd be embarrassed, and livid, if I lived there.

One would think the very act of harrassing a someone who served and defended our country because of his dog would be enough to in a post by itself. And it probably would be.  But there's more to this.

During this whole process, Mr. Shelton went out and got the DNA test done on his dog. The net result?  No traceable amount of any of the "pit bull" breeds in Roscoe's DNA. None.

And while Shelton was told that Roscoe was  a Boston Terrier mix (which is why he didn't think he would be affected by the law), there is no traceable amount of Boston in him either.

And this is exactly why every single one of these laws, that claims a dog to be banned, or dangerous, or automatically aggressive, based on the way it looks if it looks too much like a "pit bull" should be struck down based on vagueness.

According to our legal Void for Vagueness Doctrine, a law is considered "vague" if a person of ordinary intelligence cannot determine what persons are regulated or what conduct is prohitbited. It is also designed to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of laws.

In this case, how would someone who owns a dog with zero trace of a pit bull in him would still be restricted under an ordinance that restricts a breed of dog that he does not own? 

Just this week, Animal Farm Foundation and the National Canine Research Council released a new "find the pit bull" sheet -- this time containing the results from actual DNA tests to go with the pictures.

Can you guess which ones carry significant amounts of "pit bull" breeds? 

Do you trust that animal control in a city with a ban on 'pit bull' breeds can tell the difference?

Does the fact that they can't -- but could deem your dog a 'pit bull' anyway and take it and kill it (without any due process in the state of Ohio) seem like a problem to anyone else?

And in spite of all of this, even if they could accurately tell if a dog was really a 'pit bull', that it still wouldn't indicate that the dog was actually aggressive.

So why have we stuck with BSL for so long? Why do we allow our governments to enforce vague laws against good people in the world like Leonard Shelton who become unsuspecting victims of these laws. Why not focus all of our energies on people who actually have dogs that behave aggressively, instead of harrassing good people and forcing them to have to move from their homes because of an arbitrary law that they didn't even break? 

We'd all benefit if we used our limited animal control resources more wisely than that.

And Lakewood, OH -- shame on you.

-- When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace -- Jimi Hendricks

Comments

[SocialMange]

I am hugely relieved that Mr. Shelton's dog was released to him, but saddened that Lakewood city councillors are still so stupid that Mr. Shelton had to move to avoid harassment. Morons.

[EmilyS]

Just more proof that "breed" bans have nothing to to do with "breed."

It becomes more and more unbelievable that courts accept cities regulating dogs by appearance rather than behavior.

[Dawn]

It is coming to light that there is a racial component to this as well. We recently got word of an African-American couple who had a papered Boxer puppy in their car at drug store parking lot in Lakewood being harassed by the police over the dog law. They fortunately were not Lakewood residents and I hope they never patronize another Lakewood business until the law is changed and the mayor and council have been removed from office.

[MichelleD]

Exactly Dawn. Lakewood residents need to be mobilizing NOW and get these yahoos voted OUT!