Call it the tale of two trials.
On January 30, a Toole County, Montana, jury could not reach an unanimous decision in the misdemeanor trial of Jonathan Lewis Harman and Athena Lethcoe-Harman; the Alaskan couple was charged with 180 counts of animal cruelty for transporting 169 dogs and 11 cats in an unventilated tractor-trailer while apparently providing little food, water or veterinary care. Many of the animals suffered from one malady or another, from dehydration to malnutrition, and before the Harmans were finally stopped at the U.S.-Canadian border, one dog had died during the couple's 2,000-mile-plus trip from Alaska.
The six deadlocked jurors forced Toole County Justice of the Peace Janice Freeland to declare a hung jury after the seven-day trial. The decision was "initially devastating," remembers Dave Pauli, director of the Northern Rockies Regional Office, who helped coordinate the rescue and sheltering of the animals and who testified at the trial. "We couldn't understand why the jury let them off the hook."
Fast-forward to late May in the Anaconda-Deer Lodge County courthouse, where the Harmans' second trial was moved due to the huge amount of publicity in Toole County. The prosecutors' incomprehension following the hung jury in January was now supplanted with a renewed focus on how to convince a six-person jury that the Harmans were guilty.
Five days later, on May 31, a Deer Lodge County jury deliberated less than two hours and unanimously convicted the Harmans on 180 counts each of animal cruelty. The shock of January had turned into jubilation. A small courtroom audience reportedly erupted into cheers and applause.
So why the drastic difference between the two trials? According to Pauli and a published report in the Great Falls Tribune, it probably boiled down to a few things: the evidence introduced (or not introduced), the witnesses called, the length of trial, the jury instructions, a different judge, and possibly a more receptive political environment thanks in part to The HSUS's help in advancing a tougher animal cruelty bill through the Montana legislature.
In the original trial, Pauli noted, the prosecution focused almost exclusively on a 48-hour window when the animals were confiscated at the border and then treated for a variety of ills. The approach proved to be too limiting when the defense team introduced witnesses who testified about Lethcoe-Harman's "show-dog record" and efforts to "weed out" a disease called Collie Eye Anomaly; the defense even took the jury to "Camp Collie," a temporary shelter in Shelby, where the dogs, after several months of care by rescue volunteers, "looked like Lassie," Pauli said.
In the second trial, the prosecution successfully filed motions to block much of the defense team's tactics, including a jury visit to "Camp Collie II," where the animals had been transferred since the first trial. (Read "Camp Collie II: Great Falls, Montana, New Home to Rescued Animals" below.) Perhaps more important, Pauli added, was the fact that the prosecution expanded its case to present witnesses who encountered the Harmans earlier in their trip, well before the couple was stopped at the border.
These witnesses proved crucial, Pauli said. One witness, an animal control officer, approached the Harmans in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Anchorage, less-than three hours into their trip. When the couple allegedly couldn't present the correct paperwork, including rabies and health certificates, the officer gave the Harmans a 24-hour warning to secure the documents. When he returned, Pauli said, the Harmans were long gone. Another prosecution witness testified to the poor conditions of their rig, long before the Harmans approached U.S. territory.
Pauli's own testimony focused primarily on the transport of these animals. He believed that the sheer act of transporting 180 animals for many days in an unventilated tractor-trailer-one in which many of the animal carriers were not affixed to the walls or floor-constituted animal cruelty. But under the state's misdemeanor animal cruelty law, Pauli said, the Harmans had to be convicted of only one of several possible cruelties. One of those is inhumane transport.
Unfortunately, the Harmans could not be tried under Montana's new felony-level animal cruelty law, which Governor Judy Martz signed into law in April. The law won't become effective until July 1, so its tougher penalties couldn't apply to the Harmans. At their June 6 sentencing the Harmans were each given a ten-year suspended jail term in exchange for relinquishing all but three of their 191 animals and waiving their right to an appeal, a process that could have further prolonged the case (Under Montana law, justice court misdemeanor cases can be immediately appealed to state District Court.)
While the Harmans could have been required to pay up to $500 for each misdemeanor count, the couple was not fined or told to repay thousands of dollars to Toole County to cover the costs-estimated at $1,000 a day-of caring for the animals (although the county apparently covered only part of those costs; the rest have been paid by animal groups or through private donations).
Perhaps most important however, the sentencing agreement prohibits the Harmans from owning any other animal other than the two dogs and one cat that will be returned to them for the next ten years. They are also forbidden to breed any animal during that period.
Even though the Harmans won't suffer the stiffer penalties, the couple's case did help instigate the tougher animal cruelty law, Pauli noted. The original bill, he said, was stalled in a House subcommittee when the hung jury was announced in January. The public outrage was palpable.
The HSUS and other animal organizations pounced on that public sentiment and coordinated an e-mail and letter-writing campaign targeting the tougher cruelty bill. The lobbying pressure worked: Despite the current conservative nature of the Montana legislature, not to mention the conservative nature of the specific agriculture subcommittee where the bill was stalled, the proposed legislation made its way through the full House and to the Senate. It didn't make it out of the legislature, Pauli noted, until the last day of the session, an indication of the political resistance toward the bill.
The law not only calls for tougher penalties-it also allows the legislation to be applied to those with ten or more animals in their possession. "This will be huge in helping us deal with animal hoarder cases in the future," Pauli added.
But as for the present, prospects for the dogs and cats have already improved. The HSUS, the American Working Collie Association and other groups are helping to coordinate adoption clinics to handle the thousands of offers to adopt the Harmans' former charges. With the possibility of an appeals trial removed, the animals can now be adopted out into loving homes.
That might be the ultimate sign of justice.
