The worse the crime, the worse the punishment?

An animal rights nut I am not. Quite the opposite, in fact. However, I do think animals have a right not to be treated cruelly, and while it might be another example of my less than perfect libertarianism, I have no problem in making it a crime for human beings to torture animals. I would remind people who have philosophical problems with this to keep in mind that people who torture animals have a demonstrated tendency to be psychopaths, and are likely to be very dangerous to humans, so a good case can be made that locking them up is not just for the animals' sake.

A case I read about today involved a sicko who raped a 21 year old horse:

Vereen was arrested in July after Barbara Kenley caught him entering the barn at Lazy B Stables in Longs, about 20 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach. She had been staking out the stable for more than a week after setting up a surveillance camera and videotaping Vereen's assault on her 21-year-old horse named Sugar.

Kenley said she became suspicious because her horse was acting strange and getting infections, and she noticed things were moved around the barn and dirt was piled up near the horse's stall.

It wasn't the first time she'd caught Vereen. In late 2007, Kenley found him asleep in the hay after assaulting her horse. For that offense, he also pleaded guilty to buggery, received probation and had to register as a sex offender.

On Wednesday, the judge sentenced Vereen to five years in prison, but he will only have to serve three years behind bars as long as he successfully completes two years of probation. Vereen also was ordered to undergo additional mental treatment after he gets out of prison and was told to stay away from Kenley's stable.

Not only can animals not consent to sex with humans, but it's obvious that the animal was harmed and subjected to what would certainly be torture for a human. I have no problem with the guy going to prison for doing that, although I see that the horse's owner thinks he should have gotten more than 3 years. (Actually, it was 5 years with 2 subtracted if he behaves.)

But if we contrast his crime and punishment with that of Michael Vick, there are huge disparities that I think are worth examining. What Vick did went far, far beyond sexual penetration, and unlike Sugar the horse, Vick's dogs died indescribably agonizing deaths -- not from fighting, but from the sadistic and gratuitous "punishments" inflicted on them:

Most people are aware that Michael Vick was "convicted of dog fighting." They know he went to prison, and they've also probably seen the news stories, including a moving Sports Illustrated cover story, about the Vick dogs that were rescued and rehabilitated after being seized from his Bad Newz Kennels.

But that's only part of the story.

"What Michael Vick did was not just dog fighting," said Marthina McClay of Our Pack, a pit bull rescue group in Santa Clara, and the owner of one of the Vick dogs, Leo. "It went so far beyond that, and most people who defend him are uninformed. They don't really realize what Michael Vick did."

If you're one of the people McClay is talking about, let me invite you into Donna Reynolds' nightmare.

Reynolds is the co-founder of Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls (BAD RAP), an East Bay organization with a national reputation for rescuing and rehabilitating pit bulls. They rehabbed and cared for many of the dogs seized from Vick's Bad Newz Kennels after his arrest in April of 2007.

She's definitely not what you'd call a fragile flower, and she's been working with ex-fighting pits for longer than a lot of the people reading this have been out of kindergarten. It's fair to say she's seen the worst things that people can do to dogs, but there's still a story she can't get out of her mind.

It was a sweltering day in September of 2007, and Reynolds was in Virginia to evaluate the 49 pit bulls found alive on Vicks' property. A federal agent who had been at the scene when the property was searched was driving her to the various facilities holding the dogs, and they got to talking about what the investigation had turned up.

"The details that got to me then and stay with me today involve the swimming pool that was used to kill some of the dogs," Reynolds wrote on her blog. "Jumper cables were clipped onto the ears of underperforming dogs, then, just like with a car, the cables were connected to the terminals of car batteries before lifting and tossing the shamed dogs into the water."

She continued, "We don't know how many suffered this premeditated murder, but the damage to the pool walls tells a story. It seems that while they were scrambling to escape, they scratched and clawed at the pool liner and bit at the dented aluminum sides like a hungry dog on a tin can.

"I wear some pretty thick skin during our work with dogs, but I can't shake my minds-eye image of a little black dog splashing frantically in bloody water ... screaming in pain and terror ... brown eyes saucer wide and tiny black white-toed feet clawing at anything, desperate to get a hold. This death did not come quickly. The rescuer in me keeps trying to think of a way to go back in time and somehow stop this torture and pull the little dog to safety. I think I'll be looking for ways to pull that dog out for the rest of my life."

Vick served 18 months in prison, and he has never expressed regret for conduct that would shock many a hardened dogfighter.

So what's with the disparity in punishment? What happened to the horse was wrong, but sexual penetration does not even come close to having jumper cables put on your ear and being electrocuted while slowly drowning in a swimming pool. Screwing someone's horse is sick, but what happened to Vick's dogs was much sicker (at least, by any logical standard).

Might it have something to do with Vick being a rich celebrity? Or am I wrong about what is considered more sick? Is there something in the sexual nature of the crime against the horse that makes it "worse" even though the horse recovered? Surely a sexually violated horse would not trade places with a fatally tortured dog.

And yet, I can't help wondering whether Vick might have been treated differently had he been caught screwing a horse instead of torturing dogs. I'm not so much talking about sentencing, but would he be welcomed back into the NFL as he is now? Would they just be saying, "Come on, the dude paid his debt to society" as they are now?

Surely, screwing a horse is not more immoral than torturing dogs to death.

Or is there something I am missing?

MORE: Commenting on Ann Althouse's post about the horse screwing conviction, Glenn Reynolds notes a distinction I missed -- that this was someone else's horse and not the man's own horse. (That might make a difference to the horse, too.)

Is it a factor that Vick was torturing his own dogs as opposed to someone else's?

I don't know, but I still think what he did was far worse than having sex with a horse, and what I can't figure out is why society doesn't seem to think so. If (as one commenter pointed out), sex is something over which we generally have less control than other things, that would seem to be a mitigating factor.

And I just can't shake my suspicion that the many people who think it's just fine for Michael Vick to deliver morally uplifting lectures to children would feel differently had he been convicted of horse screwing, and while I don't understand it, I think it has something to do with the way sex is viewed. It is considered "worse" than brutal violence.

posted by Eric on 11.04.09 at 04:46 PM





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Comments

Surely, screwing a horse is not more immoral than torturing dogs to death.

Or is there something I am missing?

Is a rough proportionality between punishments something we should be demanding, particularly when comparing bizarre cases? And, is there any reason to think we can draw conclusions, in those circumstances, from what looks like a lack of it?

AemJeff   ·  November 4, 2009 05:26 PM

Attach jumper cables to Vicks ears and throw him into a pool. Justice.

LYNNDH   ·  November 4, 2009 05:46 PM

Well, the horse buggerer wasn't a guy who made lots of money for lots of people and who had millions of fans.

Important people just don't deserve to be treated like the hoi polloi.


I'm generally libertarian in a lot of things, but I'm not too doctrinaire.

My problem with being a Libertarian is that I have such a low opinion of people, there are so many people who will hurt other people if they think they can get away with it.

Torturing animals is a particularly heinous crime because it shows that you will torture what you think is helpless.
What happens when you find a person you think to be "helpless"?

Veeshir   ·  November 4, 2009 05:47 PM

Hideous!..beyond belief. ..and the owners of the NFL have no problem with this...but Rush can't be part owner of one of their teams...their standards of decency are much too high! Pitiful in very way!

MTFraz   ·  November 4, 2009 10:22 PM

Apparently someone who is "just" a psychopath and acts without conscience, but purely for personal profit, is perceived as capable of changing their behavior. While one who acts without conscience in order to achieve personal pleasure is believed more likely to repeat the offense. I suspect recidivism to be high for both.

Will   ·  November 5, 2009 05:11 AM

On one of NatGeo's animal shows, I saw a Philly Animal Cop state that pit bull fights dramatically increased once the town heard Vick was coming. No stats to back that up, but I'm not surprised. Hero worship in the lowest form.

Vick is still seen as a marketable product. Nothing more.

The horse buggerer is just a common inbred.

Hoss   ·  November 5, 2009 07:32 AM

This week there was also a story in the news about a guy who hung his girlfriend's 4-month-old kitten (while she was out) and *filmed* it.
I always say that its important to bring these types to court if for no other reason than they can get mandatory psych evauluations, counselling, etc. Many people "graduate" from torturing animals to tortuing children or adults.
(Incredibly, the kitten lived, btw. He discarded it when it became unconscious, thinking it was dead. It revived and I think has been seen by a vet.)

Lynne   ·  November 5, 2009 08:10 AM

Children who abuse animals, grow up to become pedophiles and BTK types. Although the internet provides rapid dissemination, it would be curious to know if it has caused an increase in perpetrators.

Hoss   ·  November 5, 2009 08:35 AM

Within a day of this sentence being handed down, a judge here in WV gave a man 3 years of probation for repeatedly molesting his five-year-old niece.

I'm all for punishing the man who did this to the horse, but surely the crime of assaulting a young girl should be considered at LEAST as bad...

Robin S.   ·  November 5, 2009 03:10 PM

Mike Vick is not human - and Roger Goodell thinks Rush isn't good enough for the NFL?

I cannot express here my true feelings, but if I had a gun and a Mike Vick....I would instead take him to a hobart meat slicer and let the thing work 1/8 inch at a time.

Fracking Arghaole....

Bill Johnson   ·  November 5, 2009 04:29 PM

Robin S.
Sometimes this end of civilization isn't so funny.

Veeshir   ·  November 5, 2009 05:14 PM

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