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To: Brilliant
They are rarely charged because the prosecutors know how difficult it is to get a conviction.

You're missing the point (I suspect deliberately) - there have to be TWO conditions if your pit bull attacks someone - owning a dangerous breed and failing to control it.

If you leave the parking brake off and your car rolls over someone you are usually charged for negligent homicide. If you don't have a fence around your pool and a kid drowns you are charged. It is not illegal to own a car or a pool, but you are charged anyway because you didn't take the proper actions the protect others from your car/pool. Likewise if your dog attacks someone, then you obviously have failed to control the animal

65 posted on 09/14/2007 6:46:55 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your most dangerous enemy is your own government, Benito Guilinni a short man in search of a balcony)
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To: from occupied ga

A criminal conviction requires that they prove more than that they failed to control it. If that were the only thing that was required, then every owner whose dog killed someone would go to jail because clearly they failed to control it.

Unfortunately, the prosecutor also must prove a mental element, usually actual intent to cause injury, or negligence so gross as to suggest actual intent to cause injury. That is where the problem is. The owner says it has never attacked before, or that it has never caused any injury before, etc., and maybe it’s true.

In most cases, there is no actual crime unless you actually make it illegal to own the breed.


69 posted on 09/14/2007 6:53:52 AM PDT by Brilliant
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