Ella
Posted on 12/05/2008 4:22:37 AM PST by TornadoAlley3
COCOA — For nine months, Theresa Clifton has rallied with roughly 50 other protesters who attended each hearing for a woman accused of moving out of her home and leaving behind her dog to starve to death, calling for nothing but the maximum yearlong jail sentence.
On Thursday, a judge ordered Christine Abrams, 30, of Cocoa to spend eight months in jail as part of a 12-month probation sentence, after she pleaded no contest to two counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty for the starvation death of her 1-year-old German shepherd, Ella.
Judge Kelly McKibben also ordered Abrams to perform 80 hours of community service and pay a $5,000 fine, along with other court costs.
Protesters called the outcome bittersweet.
"I'm not happy with the outcome . . . but we are happy that it has been acknowledged that it was a heinous crime," said Clifton, executive director of the Central Brevard Humane Society. "It dismays me that anyone in this community would think it's OK (to starve an animal) just because it's a dog."
The case drew the attention of thousands of people worldwide who have created Web pages, signed petitions, donated money to local animal organizations and begun lobbying lawmakers for tougher animal-cruelty laws in Ella's memory.
The humane society named a dog-walking path in Ella's memory.
Emotions run high
Abrams was sentenced during an emotionally charged hearing characterized by courtroom outbursts from protesters who rallied outside the courthouse beforehand, admonishments from the judge that Abrams' attorney not direct comments at the audience, and a post-hearing battle of words in the hallway between the lawyer and a protester.
After the hearing, deputies said Abrams was escorted out the back of the building, away from protesters waiting in front with signs.
She will return to court Dec. 16 to determine when she has to report to the Brevard County jail to begin serving jail time, after her lawyer, Andrew Stine of West Palm Beach, indicated that he planned to appeal the judge's previous ruling on a motion to suppress evidence.
McKibben said Abrams may not own any animals during her probation.
"The facts of this case are very egregious," McKibben said. "I think she made a very bad decision on that date."
Abrams was arrested March 12, after prosecutors said she moved out of the home and left Ella in a cage for several months, with an unopened bag of dog food and a bottle of water mere feet away.
Police said Abrams, discovered less than a mile away at a friend's home, told them she moved out because her water had been cut off, and said she didn't take Ella with her because her new roommate allegedly didn't like dogs.
Abrams had faced a maximum of a year in jail and $5,000 fine had she been convicted at trial.
Prosecutors on Thursday asked that she be sentenced to nine months in jail as part of the probation, to 100 hours of community service, and that she be ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
'Only a misdemeanor'
In seeking a sentence that didn't include jail time, Stine drew loud protests from the courtroom gallery, when he asked that Abrams be placed on probation and house arrest, and to publish a letter of apology in the local newspaper or one of the Web sites dedicated to Ella.
He said Abrams -- who had wanted to address the court, but did not on his advice -- is remorseful and has donated the home where Ella died to Catholic Charities. He pointed out that she has no prior criminal record.
"No matter how cruel and inhumane it may appear, it's only a misdemeanor. And it's a misdemeanor for a reason. It's because this was an animal, this was a dog," he said, drawing gasps from the audience.
McKibben said she "appreciated" Abrams' showing of remorse and acceptance of responsibility, but the facts of the case warranted jail time.
There was no evidence pointing to a need for Abrams to undergo psychiatric or psychological evaluations, she said.
Sentence delayed
McKibben granted Stine's request that she delay Abrams' jail sentence until after the circuit court rules on his appeal of her ruling last month that police did not violate Abrams' Fourth Amendment rights by entering her home without a warrant.
McKibben sided with police, who said they feared Abrams might be in need of immediate medical attention after peering through a window and catching sight of Ella's decomposing body.
Stine had argued in pretrial motions that the warrantless search was illegal unless police had reason to believe they or someone inside was in immediate danger, or that evidence was about to be destroyed. Death eliminated those possibilities, he said.
Based on McKibben's decision, "today in Brevard, if an officer comes to your door and says he smells death -- which I don't even know what that is -- he could enter without a warrant," Stine said after Thursday's hearing. "I don't believe that's what our forefathers intended."
Protester concerns
Protesters said they are worried Abrams might be a flight risk, and questioned why she didn't donate her home to an animal organization and whether she actually wanted to apologize to the court.
"If she were remorseful and actually accepting guilt, she wouldn't be trying to delay this again and weasel her way out of jail time," protester Holly Gann of Merritt Island said.
Ella
As sad and tragic as this is, How many Aborted, neglected and abused children have had less advocacy?
doggie ping
This just kills me inside. WTF goes through these people’s minds? It’s not that hard to surrender a pet to the SPCA or the Humane Society.
But isn’t death by dehydration/starvation peaceful and serene? < /sarcasm>
Have you seen this, Mark?
Really. Is this Florida? the same state that starved a woman to death? If I remember correctly-the only people threatened with legal action were the people trying to prevent it.
No offense meant to right thinking Floridians of course.Or critter lovers (I am one).
That was my first thought as well.
I don't.
Really? How am I part of the problem?
Neither do I.
I’ll take a pet over a human any day of the week.
It’s okay to starve and dehydrate a human in Florida. Why would they care if she starved her dog?
What the doggy lovers don’t seem to get is that the more human life is devalued, the more it eventually will affect the precious animals. Everyone who thinks it’s so ‘enlightened’ to love animals more than people will eventually learn this the hard way.
Probably many of the same ghouls who didn’t give Terri the slightest thought.
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