{"id":755950,"date":"2019-01-17T08:28:12","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T13:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=755950"},"modified":"2019-01-17T08:28:12","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T13:28:12","slug":"new-jersey-lawmakers-consider-giving-some-animals-attorneys-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=755950","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey lawmakers consider giving (some) animals attorneys in court"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<blockquote  class=\"bs-quote bs-quote-1 bsq-t1 bsq-s1 bsq-left\">\n\t\t<div class=\"quote-content\">\n\t\t\t<p>ALL animals need representation. They need people to come forward on their behalf. They can\u2019t speak. Often times animal abusers do not get close to the maximum punishment allowed by law.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>CHRISTIE DUFFY:<\/strong><em> &#8216;A bill has been proposed in New Jersey by State Assemblywoman Annette Quijano that would give cats and dogs an advocate in court&#8230; Law students and attorneys could volunteer to represent the &#8216;pets&#8217; pro-bono \u2014 to make their case when abusers face a judge. &#8220;Dogs need representation,&#8221; said John DeCando, chief animal control officer for the city of Paterson. &#8220;They need people to come forward on their behalf. They can\u2019t speak. It would be nice to have someone pro-bono come forward and represent an animal that can\u2019t speak for themselves&#8221;. DeCando has been prosecuting animal abuse cases for decades \u2014 and he says he\u2019s never lost a fight. But often times animal abusers do not get close to the maximum punishment allowed by law&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Quijano\u2019s bill is modeled after a Connecticut law that is the first of it\u2019s kind, called &#8220;Desmond\u2019s law&#8221;, named for a dog that was killed by it\u2019s owner, whom did not receive jail time. Brutally beaten, strangled and starved \u2014 Desmond\u2019s owner admitted it, but was only sentenced to a 4-month rehabilitation program. &#8220;Which was insignificant compared to the magnitude of the injury and pain and suffering he caused to Desmond,&#8221; commented Diane Balkin, senior staff attorney for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, which helped craft Desmond\u2019s law&#8230; New York Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal has also proposed a similar bill that will be re-introduced in New York on January 9&#8242;.<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/pix11.com\/2019\/01\/04\/new-jersey-lawmakers-may-consider-giving-animals-attorneys-in-court\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>SOURCE&#8230;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED VIDEO:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g5zzSEgNlmg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CHRISTIE DUFFY: &#8216;A bill has been proposed in New Jersey by State Assemblywoman Annette Quijano that would give cats and dogs an advocate in court&#8230; Law students and attorneys could volunteer to represent the &#8216;pets&#8217; pro-bono \u2014 to make their case when abusers face a judge. &#8220;Dogs need representation,&#8221; said John DeCando, chief animal control [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":755951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,20,23,25],"tags":[27,35,37],"class_list":["post-755950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-justice","category-rights","category-welfare","tag-cruelty","tag-protection","tag-speciesism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=755950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":755952,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755950\/revisions\/755952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/755951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=755950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=755950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=755950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}