DULUTH, Minn. – Prosecution of a case involving alleged sexual contact with a dead deer may hinge on the legal definition of the word “animal.”
Bryan James Hathaway, 20, of Superior, Wis., faces a misdemeanor charge of sexual gratification with an animal. He is accused of having sex with a dead deer he saw beside a road on Oct. 11.
A motion filed last week by his attorney, public defender Fredric Anderson, argued that since the deer was dead, it was not considered an animal and the charge should be dismissed.
“The statute does not prohibit one from having sex with a carcass,” Anderson wrote.
Judge Michael Lucci heard the motion Tuesday.
“I’m a little surprised this issue hasn’t been tackled before in another case,” Lucci said.
Well now, that’s different.
ViaDave Barry.
A.
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$100 bucks (no pun intended) says Hathaway’s political persuasion is republican. Its a slam dunk for anyone that sick.
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The DDBTRF. Work that out, people. I won’t take anonymous on for the $100 bet. Who would?
Okay, you don’t want to hear this, but…
…this is the nature of due process in the criminal law system. It is, in the most minor of ways, one of the reasons for secret prisons, suspension of habeas, and the Military Commissions Act.
Yes, it really is all of a piece. And yes, it makes for a really, really stupid argument for due process in criminal law. Nonetheless, hear me out:
A criminal statute must be specific. The Legislature must clearly identify the type of conduct considered criminal. If the statute is too vague, that leaves too much discretion to the prosecutor (who has plenty already) about who to prosecute for what crime, which leads to all manner of corruption and abuse. The way to prevent that is for the court to have a doctrine of statutory construction which it applies to criminal statutes to determine if the accused is, in fact, guilty of the crime charged. The prosecutor can’t just charge any crime, and can’t stretch the meaning of the most severely punished crimes to fit the facts of the person in the dock.
All of which means you get silly cases like this. Seemingly silly, actually, because since the accused is not charged with necrophilia, if sex with a dead animal is the equivalent of sex with a dead human (what’s the functional difference between the two?), is it really bestiality, as charged? If it isn’t, he’s not guilty of bestiality, which he’s been charged with, and he should go free.
He’s sick; but he may not be a criminal.
They must not have enough buzzards in Wisconsin
eeeeew, and it was roadkill????? not fresh? eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew.
This reminds me of a story of a performance artist in Germany (if I am remembering correctly). He dropped a dead cow from a helicopter. People were outraged, but since it was dead, the cow was considered beef. Of course, there’s no law against dropping beef from a helicopter even though a few short minutes earlier it was a cow.
Pansy, tell me it would have been less godawful with a fresh deer.
A.
OK, I must be missing something here. A dead deer is still a deer, just dead. Just as a human is still a human even if it’s a dead human, which is why there are laws against necrophilia.
That being said, this is just too sick for words. Man is Nature’s last word? I think not.
“I’m a little surprised this issue hasn’t been tackled before in another case,” Lucci said.
Shorter Lucci:
Bobo’s world is more extensive than this!!
no maggots
ok, i KNOWS it’s sick, but it would be WARM.
anon is ppoo
it would have been godawful but it wouldn’t have been godawful with a side of maggots and stench
(sorry, I live in an area with almost as many deer as humans-I see a lot of casualties. Hence my appreciation of the buzzard. Nature’s sanitation engineer.)
Much better than a local mall which had an idea which spurred an episode of “WKRP in Cincinnatti”:
For Thanksgiving, a local radio station was going to drop live Turkeys from a helicopter. The people who captured them could then have them dressed and served for Thanksgiving.
Fortunately, someone called in and let them know that domestic Turkeys were aerially challenged.
Of course on WKRP, there was no such phone call and Les Nessman reported on the carnage.