Court dogfight over ban targets 4 cities
Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007
A constitutional challenge has been filed in federal court against ordinances that ban pit bulls in four central Arkansas cities.
“Breed-specific legislation is growing like wildfire, kind of like the fires in California,” Roger Schnyer, founder and director of a nonprofit animal welfare group, Responsible Owners of Arkansas Dogs, said Friday, explaining why his group is seeking court scrutiny.
He said that a lot of misinformation is behind the bans, which are often passed by cities without proper legal input.
“It simply takes a meeting of a city council or a quorum court. It’s done simply with a vote of those present,” he said. “Any ordinance will stand until it’s challenged in court.” Although 10 Arkansas cities are thought to have some form of legislation regulating the ownership of pit bulls and related breeds, the lawsuit is aimed at ordinances in just four of those cities: Jacksonville, Lonoke, North Little Rock and Beebe.
Schnyer, who lives in Lonoke, said that’s because the four individual plaintiffs reside in those cities and have been personally affected by the bans, which gives them proper standing to sue. Schnyer’s group is also a plaintiff, but he isn’t personally.
“I do not own a pit bull. I own a 3-and-a-half pound Chihuahua, which at this very moment is curled up on my lap,” the 68-year-old former child-support enforcement investigator said Friday. “But somebody had to take up the cause.” Describing himself as “in disgustingly good health,” Schnyer vowed to appeal all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court if the lawsuit fails, saying, “We’re in it for the long run.” He said his 38 years spent working in the judicial system included being a criminal investigator in Independence County.
While Schnyer said many breed-specific bans are enacted without legal consultation, Lonoke City Attorney Randy Grice said Friday that in drafting Lonoke’s relatively new ban on pit bulls, “We relied heavily on Maumelle’s city ordinance, which was upheld as constitutional by the Arkansas Supreme Court.” The case, decided in 1991, is Holt v. City of Maumelle.
“We went to great lengths to ensure due process is met,” Grice said. “We didn’t just haphazardly draw this up.” Under the policy, a pet dog that is considered a banned breed is euthanized only when an owner fails to come get it after it has been seized, Grice said. Owners who claim their dogs aren’t allowed to keep them in the city limits. Grice said the seizure process includes “several notices” sent to the owner and does not occur in simply a matter of days.
Similarly, North Little Rock’s animal control director, Billy Grace, said the previous city attorney assured him that the pitbull ban “has been upheld all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court.” Grace said that since his city’s enactment of the ban in 2004, “We have picked those things up left and right.... It’s probably the best thing we’ve ever done.” He said he has sympathy for the dogs, who often have ended up in the hands of unscrupulous owners, and that irresponsible owners, in fact, are the reason for the ban.
The current city attorney, Jason Carter, couldn’t be reached for comment on Friday.
Schnyer’s group, which was incorporated on July 17 and now has about 75 members, is affiliated with a national group called Responsible Dog Owners of the Western States.
“We’re not an animal-rights organization,” Schnyer said adamantly. “We’re an animal-welfare organization. We’re here to help all breeds of dogs, not just pit bulls, [but ] we don’t want them to have the same rights as people.” He said the group’s philosophy is, “if the dog does something, don’t penalize the dog.” Just as with young children who rely on people to guide and care for them, Schnyer noted, “The dog can’t read newspapers and follow regulations.” The plaintiffs, represented by attorney Andrew L. Clark of Little Rock, are seeking a declaratory judgment that the breedspecific ordinances violate the 5 th and 14 th amendments to the U. S. Constitution, as well as the Commerce Clause. They are also seeking compensatory damages, as well as a return of fine money the cities collected pursuant to the ordinances.
The case, filed Thursday in Little Rock, has been assigned to Chief U. S. District Judge Leon Holmes.
Clark, who couldn’t be reached for comment on Friday, alleged in the complaint that the ordinances ’ definitions of prohibited breeds are “unconstitutionally vague and overbroad,” creating undue burdens on dog owners to prove a dog’s breed, while it is “scientifically impossible to determine the breed of a mixed-breed dog or its origin.” The suit also alleges that the ordinances discriminate against classes of individuals without a rational government test, and interfere with due-process rights by allowing property to be seized without notice, a pre-seizure hearing or just compensation.
The individual plaintiffs include: Richard Venable of Lonoke, who paid someone $ 425 to board his pit bull after he was required to remove the dog from the city; Darius Sims of Jacksonville, whose two American Staffordshire terriers were euthanized before he could find a home for them, even though he agreed to have them sterilized and micro-chipped; Phillip Mc-Cormick of Beebe, who pays $ 250 a week to board his dogs after the city took them from his home; and Mike Kierry of North Little Rock, who paid $ 1, 500 for a dog with the intention of breeding it, only to have it seized by North Little Rock Animal Control officials. The city neutered and microchipped the animal but forced Kierry to surrender it because he had violated the ordinance by failing to have the procedures done himself.
News articles dating back to 2005 indicate that pit-bull bans or restrictions apply in North Little Rock, Sherwood, Maumelle, Pine Bluff, Lonoke, Jacksonville, Mc-Gehee, Des Arc, Hot Springs and Beebe. Earlier this month, Little Rock officials discussed regulating ownership of the dogs and classifying them as a dangerous breed without enacting an outright ban.
The proposed ordinance would require residents to register their pit bulls with Animal Services, pose for a photograph with the dog, sterilize the dog and buy a dangerous breed permit. Homeowners also would have to post a city-issued sticker every year on a window visible from the street notifying passersby of a pit bull’s presence, and microchip the animal with identifying information.
The dog would have to be kept indoors or in an outside enclosure, or wear a muzzle.
The ordinance would apply to American pit bull terriers, Staffordshire terriers, American Staffordshire terriers and any mix of those breeds.
The city’s Animal Control Division reported that pit bulls made up about 34 percent of all dog attacks on human beings in the city last year — or 47 out of 135 bites.
Schnyer said he has visited cities and counties across the state to discuss breed-specific legislation, and as a result, some officials have dropped plans for breed-specific bans. He said Lonoke County “decided to use our model ordinance.” The model regulations can be viewed online at roadsinc. org, under “Our Positions.” The regulations describe dogs as “personal property” and advocate specific methods of containing and caring for them, with suggested penalties for owners who fail to comply.
The Web site also lists 75 dogs that are targeted in breed-specific bans “in one jurisdiction or another,” across the country, Schnyer said. The list includes terriers, bulldogs, Australian cattle dogs, Siberian huskies, German shepherds, blue heelers, keeshonds, golden retrievers, pugs, Rottweilers and Great Danes.
Schnyer, who once raised Great Danes and described them as gentle, said that society has “gone through cycles,” once considering German shepherds vicious, although now they are mostly regarded as “service dogs,” then focusing on Dobermans and Rottweilers.
“The dog of the moment is pit bulls,” he said. “They get a bad reputation because of people like Michael Vick fighting them, when that’s not the dog’s fault.” Schnyer acknowledged that dog-ban issues are emotional, but emphasized, “This lawsuit is not a dog lawsuit. This is a constitutional-issues lawsuit.”
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