Click here to go to the original posting on the incident involving Bubba.
FYI: Bubba's trial is expected to continue on Wednesday, April 30th. Here are some recent updates:
April 19th: Friday night, Nadine (Bubba's owner) went to the pound to visit Bubba, where she and Bubba were attacked by another dog that had somehow gotten loose from its cage there. A shelter employee had to kick the attacking dog in order to get him off Nadine, who was rush to the hospital for injuries. Bubba's wounds were never treated until John (Bubba's owners) went to the pound and asked that his dog be taken to the vet. John tried hard all weekend to get information from the pound about the attacking dog, but they gave him nothing.
April 21st: Bubba's trial got underway way today with an astonishing statement by Thomas Collier, attorney for the Department of Health, that Nadine let the other dog out of the cage and that it was Bubba that attacked Nadine here when she went to the pound to visit him on Friday night. Collier tried to offer this as evidence that this proved he was right about his assessment of Bubba and that the dog must be turned over to the city and destroyed because he is a threat to the public safety. Collier pulled out a sheath of papers that he called witness statements, but the judge refused to admit them into evidence. Bubba's attorney objected that they had been asking for papers all weekend and that no one would give them to them. Bubba's attorney said she knew what Mr. Collier was attempting to do and later in the trial offered a formal motion to deny admission of the event, regardless of what the truth of the matter was. (More on this below).
Later in the trial Mr. Collier made another astonishing revelation. In trying to discredit a dog training expert's testimony, Collier said he doubted that there was any such profession known as dog training. While Bubba's lawyer should have jumped on this right way and objected to counsel offering his own opinions on matters, there is a larger issue here. The fact that this statement came from the person responsible for the legal aspects of animal control in the D.C. government is quite preposterous, and this should be of concern to anyone with or without a dog in D.C. Mr. Collier also said that he did not believe that there was nay such thing as the proper protocol for walking one's dogs on the streets. This too is absolutely preposterous, especially coming from the people on the DoH responsible for animal control. (Mr. Collier also stated, when asked about why the proper papers were not delivered to Bubba's attorney over the week, that the government does not work weekends, the government is closed on weekends.)
Please read the next posting below for the original posting about the March 17th incident involving Bubba. In the meantime, here are Blogger's alternative interpretations as to why the government offered such a contradictory report on what happened on April 18th at the pound.
First, Mr. Collier acted in good faith when he offered his statement about what happened at the pound on April 18th, i.e., he actually believes that that is what happened.
Second, Mr. Collier believes that the judge might not allow that event into the hearing, but because he must win this case, offered it anyway so it would taint the judge's interpretation of all the evidence. (But if the recent incident is not allowed into the trial and Bubba does get off, I learned that the government said it intends to bring another case against Bubba for biting Nadine, but that might be more of a threat than a promise, for the below reasons.)
Third, given the possible law suit the city would faces if Bubba is not found to be a dangerous dog on the basis of the March 17th event, a very likely outcome in Blogger's mind, meaning that Bubba never should have been impounded in the first place, given the visibility it has gotten and will continue to get, the government knows that it must win this case. But the government also knows that it does not have a very high hurdle to cross to convict Bubba, a preponderance of the evidence and NOT beyond a reasonable doubt. Why not go for broker, would the reasoning the government would then use.
Fourth, the government knows that if Bubba's owners think that they government is so confident they can win this case (for reasons discussed above, i.e., "preponderance of the evidence"), they will probably agree to anything to get their dog back without taking the risk of the trial continuing. Therefore, by piling on the accusations, the pressure will be on Bubba's owners to accept whatever it is. This is what they did to Sidney's owner's last year. The government (i.e., Peggy Keller) held out until 5:00 p.m. the night before the trial was to resume, building up enormous anxiety in Sidney's owners who by 5:00 p.m. would have agreed to anything to get their dog back, and they did. Keller insisted that the government would agree to nothing less than Sidney's owners agreeing that Sidney was a dangerous dog and to get him out of town and that if he returned, he would be euthanized. Needless to say, by 5:00 p.m. of the night before the resumption of the trial, Sidney's owners were under such great duress, they did agree, and he was on his way back to NY by 6:30 that night. Look for something like this in Bubba's case. What normal person who loved his dog would not agree to this? (I'll tell you who, someone who wanted to call the government's bluff even if it mean their dog would be euthanized.) Obviously, by agreeing to saying that their dog is a dangerous dog, John and Nadine would be siging away any right to file a lawsuit against the city for improperly seziing their dog and for any of the events of April 18th, which is what the government wants. (We are talking about pros here, who have been down this road many times and know all the ropes. )
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