ACLU and Other Options

I’d like to tell you I have a list of attorneys who can take these animal seizure cases.  I don’t.

These quasi-criminal procedures involving live animals are a new animal to legal circles and the vast majority of those with any familiarity at all are on the government side of the docket.  An attorney representing an animal owner would need familiarity with both criminal and civil law, and everything from U.S. Constitutional law to local government codes as well as a good founding in common law.  Governments have the luxury, using our tax dollars, to bring a team of lawyers to each case while an animal owner will be lucky to find a single lawyer to do the pro forma hearing while searching for someone more qualified to pursue appeals and that will only be the wealthy animal owners.  I don’t know many of those.  You?

It seems very clear to me that the governments are certainly abusing their powers in these cases and there may be many civil rights issues as well as they are certainly targeting a significant number of the poor animal owners out there.  It may be possible to get the ACLU interested and that’s going to take some effort.  For starters, they have to be made aware of these cases so everyone subjected to animal seizures and under threat of them should file a request for aid.  Even if your animals were seized a decade ago, you should consider filing a request because they need to hear what happens during the seizure and for years afterward, the effects, and they need to know how long this has been going on.  For Texas, you can file with the ACLU here.

Now civil rights usually lie in cases where one is discriminated against based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.  While that may sound simple, it isn’t – especially when one gets to animals and religion.  How much of your decision making revolves around your religious beliefs?  Probably more than you realize.  How one believes animals should be housed, cared for, used is most assuredly related to one’s national origins and social background but the standards currently being imposed are those of upper middle class Anglos, to put it simply, with all other traditions and standards being dismissed as “cruel”.  When talking to lawyers, remember that you may have to point these things out.

Well, the ACLU may become interested but they are notoriously slow to act.  So, you’re likely to need a lawyer in the meantime and you probably don’t have much money.  Get ready to spend hours and hours on the telephone and try to get the lawyers to do initial consult by phone because they will run you ragged if you don’t.  There is no easy way to find a lawyer for a particular case.  (OMG, there should be by now but there simply isn’t.)

Setting aside civil rights issues, what you have is a quasi-criminal procedure involving property that is not terribly different from eminent domain cases which are a part of what property law attorneys usually handle so those property attorneys may be the ones to seek out.  Unfortunately, these cases are all about the same in some ways and completely different in others so you’ll have to spell out the details to any attorney you consult with.

After searching the internet ad naseum, here’s a couple that MIGHT at least point you in the right direction:

You can check your local listings like these:

And you can go straight for the big guns and just work your way through the list.  (All you've got to lose is a bit of pride and we've all sacrificed some of that for our animals, haven't we?)

Sadly, it boils down to whether or not the lawyer has the necessary skills, you can catch their interest, and whether they’re in the mood to do some pro bono work or think they can find a pigeon hole to make the other side pay before it’s all over.

Those of you who have animals that are currently “safe”, having not been seized and not being under current, immediate threat, should really consider calling around to lawyers too.  The more people who are calling in about an area of law, the more likely it will spark some interest in the legal community.  (Do let them know that the SBOT Animal Law section is really a pro-seizure group with a limited perspective as that is likely the first place attorneys will go to get some information.)

The last resort is to represent yourself and I say that with some hesitation because I’ve seen a few who have or could have represented themselves better than the attorneys they were represented by but I still hesitate to encourage it as courts will let a mistake slide for an attorney they would slam a pro se litigant for.  It should be exactly the opposite but it generally isn’t.

I’m not the least bit pleased with what I’ve just written but it is the current state of affairs.  Should you get the least bit of hint from a lawyer of a tiny bit of interest in these cases, I would like to have the attorney’s name and contact information.  I won’t plaster the info on the web but I might be able to nudge them in our direction.

Anybody else depressed now?  Until we learn to speak as a group (or at least as a coalition of mutual support), expect that not to change.

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  Tags animal saving


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