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No Walk In The Dog Park: Drafting Animal Cruelty Statutes To Resolve Double Jeopardy Concerns And Eliminate Unfettered Prosecutorial Discretion, Laurie Serafino

Laurie B. Serafino

This article evaluates animal abuse and cruelty laws throughout the United States. It demonstrates that, although an emerging trend treats animals more like humans and less like property in some criminal cases and statutes, the laws of many states still adhere to the traditional view of animals as property, causing unique charging and sentencing issues that must be clarified in order to bring predictability and consistency to the law.

In the article, Professor Serafino explores the option of creating a new paradigm in this area, in which animals are treated as a hybrid category of "living property," "legal personhood," or …