James T. Connelly, the judge, has just about had enough. Testimony has dragged on for days and there is no end to the legal wrestling, with each side challenging one arcane detail after another.
Once again, Connelly interrupts the questioning of a witness. "I really don't understand the purpose of such excruciating details," he says, chastising the prosecutor. "We could go on forever. This hearing has to end sometime."
The acrimony is typical of any fiercely fought trial. But in this case, only the defense attorney is a legitimate member of the Bar. The judge, prosecutor and several of the witnesses are all animal control officers.
Court is in session. Canine court, that is. And the topics can range from, in this case, nasty maulings to complaints about yapping Yorkies or wayward boas.
Connelly is one of three Los Angeles city animal hearing examiners who preside over contested cases of nuisance and potentially dangerous animals. The cases--and there were nearly 600 last year--are heard at two "courts," one in North Hollywood and one near downtown.
It may be the lowest level of jurisprudence in America, but there is nonetheless an air of gravity to the proceedings.
The hearings, which typically average four to six hours each, are tape-recorded and transcribed, and a recommendation for action is forwarded by the examiner to the manager of the city's Animal Services Department.
While proceedings before the canine court carry no civil or criminal penalties, rulings can lead to pet executions, pets' banishment from the city and orders banning people from owning pets for up to three years. On a lesser scale, remedies could be as simple as ordering owners to keep pets indoors or to build better fences.
Maximum Sentence Is Death
Connelly's court is a tiny room tucked into a corner of the East Valley animal shelter in North Hollywood. With brick walls painted a soft rice-paper yellow, the room's appointments include a desk, a tape recorder, a dozen timeworn chairs, a coat rack and a bulletin board with a warning poster: "Making Threats Is No Joke."
A wood plaque with the department's insignia hangs on the wall behind Connelly. Proceedings are governed by the city's evidence code, which exempts the canine court from strictly adhering to legal technicalities. Still, testimony presented could become key in a subsequent civil trial. Thus it is not unusual for attorneys to ply legal maneuvering so complex that at times hearing examiners are forced to turn to the city attorney's office for advice.
At the start of each day of trial, witnesses are sworn in, then excused from the hearing room to wait in the shelter's lobby until called.
In the case currently before him, the defendants are two 3-year-old pit bulls named Sassy and Sarge, who were not present for the hearing and remain locked up in separate cells at a city animal shelter. The dogs are accused of the brutal mauling in February that left Acension Cervantes, 40, a Sylmar landscape worker, severely injured and scarred.
The dogs face a maximum sentence of death by lethal injection. The owners, Pamela Joyce Curry and her husband, Michael Tatum, could be barred from keeping pets for up to three years. But Curry and Tatum say they are no longer the owners, having given the dogs away to two unknown passersby the night before the attack,
A separate civil suit seeking unspecified and punitive damages has been filed in Superior Court against Curry and Tatum and their landlord, who owned the property where the dogs lived before the attack.
In the Tatum case, Connelly often found himself defending his rulings on technical challenges from defense attorney Rhonda L. Hogg of Simi Valley.
At one point after a scrappy exchange, Connelly tersely warned Hogg: "Be careful about what you're saying. You're compromising my integrity." He then called for a 10-minute recess to cool tempers.
"There is a lot at stake for the principals," Connelly later explained.
A 20-year veteran of Animal Services who has served as a hearing examiner since the program's inception, he is used to the challenges. The Tatum case, he said, "is one of the more serious cases and a lot of different legal issues have drawn it out."
Connelly is expected to make a recommendation in June and then Animal Services Department general manager Dan Knapp can follow or modify that.
In the Tatum case, there is still more documentation to be submitted. The trial has consumed six days of testimony and meticulous questioning over a stretch of more than a month--the longest hearing ever conducted by the city department since the program began in 1987.
Pets Are a Sensitive Subject
