Wheels! Of! Justice!

[captainsblog]

Some odd verdicts and sentences here in the past few days.  The first is this one, a bizarre and severely disturbing story and, thus, cut in the text below:



A man who drew national attention after being accused of marinating his cat with plans to make a meal of the SPCA-adopted pet was cleared Thursday of animal cruelty charges.

Acting City Judge Philip M. Marshall found Gary L. Korkuc, 52, not guilty of misdemeanor animal cruelty and criticized as legally flawed the state's century-old Agriculture and Markets Law under which he was charged. Marshall also noted police wrongly accused Korkuc of marinating the cat, named Navarro, with plans to eat it.

The case unfolded at about 7:45 p.m. Aug. 8 after Buffalo police stopped Korkuc for failing to signal as he turned onto Broadway at Memorial Drive.

Officers Jerry Guilian and John Poisson testified at the trial that, during the traffic stop, they could hear a cat meowing in the car and discovered Navarro, Korkuc's 4-year-old cat, doused in olive oil and spices, including crushed red pepper.

The officers said Korkuc told them that he didn't like the cat, which had gotten into kitchen food items by accident, and that he was taking it "for a Sunday bath." Police called the SPCA Serving Erie County for advice.

Molly Rubenstein, an SPCA veterinary technician, testified that she had to bathe the cat twice to eliminate the "very strong smell" of the crushed red peppers. Navarro, she said, "looked like a drowned rat."

Dr. Helene Chevalier, the SPCA veterinarian who treated the cat, testified that Navarro was so quiet that she feared the animal was in shock.

Korkuc, who initially was charged with felony animal cruelty, ultimately was prosecuted on a misdemeanor count.

Marshall found him guilty of failing to signal for a turn and fined him $70 and $80 in court fees, all of which have to be paid by March 31. But the judge found him not guilty of failing to stop at a stop sign.

The judge praised Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III for reducing the animal cruelty charge to a misdemeanor. Sedita, however, said of the verdict: "I respectfully disagree with the judge's interpretation of that law."

The judge also praised trial prosecutor Rachel E. Pilkington for her sensitive handling of the court proceeding.

Marshall — pointing to "a great deal of confusion" from publicity about the case — said police wrongly accused Korkuc of marinating the cat, which eventually was readopted through the SPCA by another family.

The judge also faulted the State Legislature for failing to change the state's law on animal cruelty, which, he said, still "makes it a crime to kill a fly, a cockroach or even a termite."

The judge praised SPCA officials as "obviously dedicated and caring people."

Public defender Michael J. Pacifico, who represented Korkuc, did not call his client or any other witnesses to testify.

He said that because of the negative publicity in the case, his client had been abused by Erie County Holding Center inmates.

Marshall released him to Transitional Services, a human services agency, where he currently lives.

At the time of his arrest, Korkuc was living in the Williamstowne Court apartments in South Cheektowaga.

He left the Buffalo area after his arrest and was returned in mid-December after being tracked to Prince George's County, Md.

----

Meanwhile, another local judge threw the book at a passenger who, best as analysts can tell, is the first in this state to be sent to prison for encouraging a driver to flee the scene of an injury accident:



One day after the passenger in a hit-and-run crash was sentenced to jail for the first time in state history, legal experts were unsure how the ruling would affect future cases.

John "Jack" Pieri was the first defendant in the state prosecuted as an accessory to a hit-and-run crash. Pieri urged his girlfriend, Andrea L. Glinski, to speed away from the March 7, 2009, crash that injured Amy E. Stewart and Rachel D. Baird near Daemen College in Snyder.

Amherst Town Justice Mark G. Farrell said he was aware of the legal precedent the ruling would set but could not predict its implications.

"Other people will look at how the court responds," Farrell said, before imposing the one-year jail sentence and $1,000 fine Thursday.

But that doesn't necessarily mean the gates will swing open for other passengers to be charged in hit-and-run accidents, Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III and two defense attorneys agreed.

"Other prosecutors may look at it and say, 'That's a nice precedent, maybe I'll do that,'" Sedita said. "It's one thing to have legal precedent, but you also need to have sufficient facts."

According to the prosecution, the key facts were contained in two written statements detailing the conversation between Pieri and Glinski following the crash.

"It's not often that we have a chance to know what was said inside the vehicle," said Kelley A. Omel, chief of the Erie County district attorney's Vehicular Crimes Unit.

That information was revealed in court Oct. 6, when Amherst Detective Terry Walsh read Pieri's signed statement that detailed the moments after the incident.

"[Glinski] asked me, 'What do I do now?'" Walsh read. "I told her to follow the signal light when it turned green." In describing the next few days after the incident, Pieri said, "I remember telling [Glinski], 'Well, if the light's green when I hit an animal, is it really your fault, or the animal's?'"

John P. Pieri, Pieri's attorney and a distant relative, filed a motion that day to exclude the statements from evidence. It failed.

"You're talking about the mental states of two separate people, and if they individually make admissions, and the passenger made his own admissions, and he admitted that, then, well, that's admissible typically," said Joseph Terranova, a defense attorney who has represented clients in several high-profile cases.

Terranova and Robert N. Convissar, another defense attorney, said the prosecution generally wouldn't be able to get a conviction without the testimony of the driver and, in many cases, an admission from the passenger.

Or, as at least one pundit put it this week, if he'd lawyered up as soon as the cops came, he'd probably be a free man right now.



In my world, both of these defendants would be riding pine at a medium-security prison right now, for about the same length of time, for about the same amount of wretched indifference to life, be it two-legged or four-legged. So far, at least, The System disagrees.  And that, and this is a legal term, "sucks."

Comments

[darksumomo.livejournal.com]

He said that because of the negative publicity in the case, his client had been abused by Erie County Holding Center inmates.

Let's see if Anonymous finds out about him. They have a history of tormenting people who are cruel to cats.

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

Mike is a friend of mine. I felt horrible for him when he got stuck with the case. He is a huge animal lover, and he and his fiance have a house full of dogs. But as a public defender, you don't have any choice over the cases you get stuck with, with a bonus that the public hates you just for doing your job.

Crap all around.

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

The first gentleman sounds as though he may be operating with diminished mental capacity (ya think?). The second precious little snowflake just sounds like a grade-A Number One Finest Kind jerk. I am not a psychic, but I'd bet that he will come to the attention of law enforcement again in the future.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

What's scary about the cat case is that dude beat the rap without having to invoke any kind of psychiatric defense. Had he done so, of course, he would have been subjected to an extra-legal journey on what Shepherd Book's detective ancestor, Sergeant Harris, used to refer to as the "Twinkiemobile" or the "Disorient Express."