“Involuntary manslaughter usually refers to an unintentional killing that results from recklessness or criminal negligence, or from an unlawful act that is a misdemeanor or felony, such as driving under the influence of alcohol. ” The Criminal Law Dictionary. (I have spoken with several attorneys and read the work of a respected law professor, and insofar as I can find, it has never been applied to a case where an animal under proper care and containment has escaped and caused an accident.)
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Wednesday, I was having lunch in a Japanese restaurant in Bennington, Vt. when a woman from the next table leaned over, apologized for interrupting me and asked if I was the author of a recent blog post about Craig Mosher, A Killington, Vt. excavator and animal lover indicted on criminal charges after his pet bull got through one of his fences and was struck by a car. The driver of the car was killed, as was the bull.
The indictment stunned the farming and legal and law enforcement community, as well as many Vermonters, who cherish the rural nature of the state, the rich history of animals and people living and working together, and the dread implications of taking unavoidable and inevitable accidents – think of your dogs and cats as well as cows and horses and bulls – and making them criminal offenses.
That is the idea of the Rutland, Vt. prosecutor in the Mosher case.
If convicted, Mosher could be sentenced to up to 15 years in jail.
The woman at the next table said she knew of me, had read my books and also my blog, and had learned of the arrest. “It is outrageous, ” she said. She told me she was planning to attend the preliminary hearing for Mosher this coming Monday, June 6 at 3 p.m., at the Rutland, Vermont Criminal Court.
“This is Vermont,” she said, “this should never happen here.”
Prosecutors and animal rights activists have been persecuting animal lovers and people who work with them for some years now – look at the massive outcry this week to jail the mother of the 3 year-old boy who crawled into a gorilla cage at the Cincinnati zoo last weekend – for accidents and for the reality of life.
Joshua Rockwood, a young farmer in Glenville, N.Y., was arrested, nearly jailed and had his three horses virtually stolen from because his water tanks froze in – 27 temperatures during the winter of 2015. Farmers and animal lovers raised more than $70,000 to pay his legal feels and help him beat back all of the transparently unjust charges against Rockwood. Earlier this year, all of the charges were dropped against him).
This time, it also appears that a prosecutor has overreached once again.(and not just in Vermont. The mayor of New York City drastically overreached last year, trying twice to ban the New York Carriage Horse industry in the absence of any evidence at all of suffering or cruelty. He failed. The Santa Monica, Calif. City Council canceled the contract of a long-time and much loved pony ride operator named Tawni Angel because one animal rights activist claimed it was torture for ponies to give rides to children. Two police investigations found the ponies were well cared for and healthy.)
I was struck by a letter published in a local newspaper last week by Gabriel Selig, a Killington area attorney, someone who is aware of Mosher’s record of heroism, responsible animal care and commitment to his community. Selig drives by the Mosher property almost every day, he said.
He wrote that “Craig Mosher acts, and acted, in a practical and reasonable manner with respect to managing his livestock. As someone who drives by his location on more or less a daily basis between October and May each year, the street lighting is bright and the fence/animals are well kept.” The case, said Selig, was an overreach.
Mosher is something of a legend in Vermont, he is credited with using his own time and equipment to open up the Killington community, trapped by the ravages of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. Mosher freed local residents and tourists trapped by washed-out roads, many were running out of food and medicine. Mosher built a new road in days to free hundreds of people.
Mosher’s work with Irene does not mean he can never be prosecuted for criminal acts, but since writing about Mosher I’ve gotten more than a dozen messages and letters from people who know him and praise his community work and the love and care he brings to his rescued sheep, donkeys and Scottish Highlander bulls. One of the bulls, Red, was the bull that escaped after an incident involving a fallen tree limb.
The question here – and it speaks to everyone with an animal of any kind – is whether we can guarantee that none of our animals will ever be involved in a mishap, from lightning to predator attack to fallen trees, floods, or rotting wood and fences. Or face jail. Just imagine how many animals will face euthanasia or abandonment if this indictment is permitted to stand.
Mosher is, from all accounts, neither negligent or callous about his care, his fences are said to be both beautiful and secure. The story strikes home to anyone who has ever lived with an animal – dog, cat, horse, cow, alpaca, donkey. I doubt there is a one of us that has not had an accident with an animal – an escape, injury, or other incident we did not expect. That is, in fact, the very nature of life with animal, it is the risk we all take when we undertake the care of a donkey or sheep or bull or horse. Or dog.
If we have any wish to keep animals in our world in this era of climate change, over-development and environmental depredation, it is in the hope that people like Craig Mosher will wish to live with them, pay for their care and do the best they can to keep them safe and secure. There is no such thing as a perfect life in the animal world, or in the world of the human-animal bond.
We do the best we can for as long as we can. That is the moral standard that has withstood the test of history and morality.
Last year, Maria and I came home from a short trip to find that a huge pine tree had fallen over and nearly crushed our expensive and very secure pasture fences – we have donkeys, a horse, sheep and soon, a cow. It was a miracle that the huge tree fell squarely on a fencepost, and a testament to the quality of the post that it didn’t crack or crumble. Otherwise, our animals could easily have walked through it and ended up on the busy state highway in front of our farmhouse.
My late donkey Carol, often smarter than me, learned how to unlatch the chain on the pasture gate. I found her in my kitchen one evening, munching on cereal boxes. She could just as easily have gone into the road and been killed, or caused a dreadful accident. Had I thought I would be liable for arrest and criminal prosecution for that, I doubt I would have rescued Carol from the farm where she had languished for 16 years.
If the Mosher case stands up, then this kind of incident will no longer be seen as a tragic but unavoidable accident. It will be a seen as a criminal offense, the criminalization of animal care, another escalation in the deepening and troubling conflict now raging between people who have animals and people who believe that all animals are pets. The Rutland Prosecutor has lost perspective, she is challenging the very nature of one of the most sacred and important relationships in the history of the earth, the human-animal bond.
The case for Craig Mosher spills far beyond this accident, as sad and painful as it is. Mosher’s friends say he was broken-hearted when he learned of the accident that killed his bull and a 64-year-old Connecticut man.
I know of no rational person who is not shocked by this indictment. Since recorded time, humans and animals have worked, hunted, lived together and loved one another. This is one of the richest chapters in the history of humans.
Today, animals are threatened more than ever, something environmentally conscious Vermonters are especially aware of. Half of the animal species on the earth have vanished since 1970, according to the World Wildlife Federation.
Only the Craig Moshers of the world can really save them.
How many people are there, I would ask the Rutland prosecutor, who will rescue donkeys and Scottish Highlander bulls, build expensive fencing and pay expensive feed and veterinary care bills, especially if they face criminal charges for incidents that are, historically seen as accidents and acts of God, not of criminals who need to be punished.
John Locke and the inventors of democracy believed that the role of government is to preserve freedom and property, not remove it arbitrarily and without any kind of public mandate or participation. If the Rutland prosecutor seeks to reverse thousands of years of tradition underlying the human-animal bond, then she has a lot of explaining and listening to do beyond secret meetings behind the closed doors of rubber-stamp Grand Juries.
In Vermont, the citizenry is acutely aware of Mother Earth and the struggle to keep farmers and animals in our world. This indictment could profoundly damage both.
When Tracy and the attorney quoted above speak of Vermont values, they speak of a special ethos in that state. Vermont is different, it is unique. It is a rural state, it values the rights of farmers and the need to keep animals among us, it values individual liberty and independence.
In Vermont, they understand the real lives of real animals. They do not ban working horses because they are told work is cruel for working animals.
It is a state where people like Craig Mosher do not wait for weeks and months for bureaucrats and aid packets to arrive or for forms to be filled out. They get in their tractors when roads are flooded and people are trapped and dig them out, without reward or compensation of any kind. The Craig Moshers of Vermont saved a lot of people after that dreadful storm. Mosher is not the kind of person would be callous about the safety of his cow or the death of the driver of the car that killed him.
That is what makes Vermont special, and part of what makes this indictment outrageous and inappropriate.
The persecution of Mosher, if it stands, would be a catastrophe for many farmers, who depend on their neighbors to share land for pasture and crops. These property owners are aleady threatening to withhold grazing rights for fear of criminal indictments should accidents occur. And they will occur. I doubt there are many people who own animals who have not experienced some kind of accident. Are there enough jails to hold them all?
And don’t fool yourself, all of this would not just impact on farmers or people with bulls. If they can do it to him, they can do it to you. If Mosher goes to jail for something he could not possibly have avoided, then think of what will happen every time a dog or cat digs under a fence or squirts out a door and runs into the road.
You know the answer as well as I do. You and me will go to jail. Or just not bother to get a dog or cat.
The case for Craig Mosher seems both urgent and important. The New York Carriage horses won their fight. Joshua Rockwood won his. I believe Craig Mosher will also prevail. The charges against him are unfair and unjust and threaten a way of life, not just one man with a dead bull.
Tracy said she will look for me on Monday at 3 p.m. in Rutland Criminal Court. I’ll be there, perhaps I will meet some of you as well. I think I might get there early.
