FREE BRINDI: Sentencing ruling by Judge Alanna Murphy 2010

issued in court April 30, 2010
released a week later in writing

Note: there are a few unclear statements in this text. In the verdict (not posted yet), the judge said she did not give much weight to the testimony of one witness, Harold Crowell, an electrician, because he had done work for me in the past. This is incorrect. He never did any work for me. He is a neighbor. His house is about 1 km down the road. We did meet once, for a few minutes, long before the incident he witnessed the morning of July 20, 2008. He didn't testify that he had done work for me, nor did I. Unfortunately, his testimony was the most objective and accurate. Instead, the judge put most of the weight on the testimony of David Shea, who was the man walking two dogs (chihuahua and a black lab), and my neighbor across the road, who admitted she didn't see anything, but claims to have heard sounds. She also claimed Brindi had tried to attack people four times. That statement was untrue ; nobody ever reported such a thing, yet it was used on the information to obtain the seizure warrant. David Shea changed his story several times after he reported the incident, especially regarding whether his dog was injured. He didn't report any injury originally, but claimed one later, then changed back, and so on. In fact, I tried to get the judge to strike all of his testimony as unreliable - and after all, he testified over eighteen months later - but she would not. Had the judge put most of her weight on Harold Crowell's testimony (and unfortunately I don't have a digital file of the transcript yet), her verdicts would have been very different, and/or the sentencing, especially the condition for doing training while Brindi was still in the pound! I will try to get that on here soon.
It's not insignificant, because HRM has been whipping up Judge Murphy's remarks about future incidents as if they set down a rule that Brindi would have to be put down if anything further happened.
SO much for muzzle orders that automatically render a dog dangerous.

HELP! HALIFAX WANTS TO KILL MY DOG!

My beloved companion and partner, over six years on death row and it's not over! In July 2008, Halifax dogcatchers seized my dog Brindi on an order to destroy her they issued without any warning - and without legal backing. Her crimes? Two reported scuffles with other dogs, and a third instance of getting loose accidentally, running to check out an approaching dog, which she never touched. She never bit a person or inflicted an injury to a dog that required medical attention. The city refused to reconsider, let alone negotiate; it rejected every alternative to killing Brindi, ignoring pleas from neighbors, trainer, vet, groomer, kennel owner, and hundreds of others - and no less than 5 positive behaviour assessments. A long, traumatic, destructive battle, with judges virtually washing their hands of her and sweeping aside all legal constraints on the city. In fact, they gave it more power - leaving her fate in the hands of the city that already decided to kill her! Halifax never deemed her dangerous - and the law does not even require dangerous dogs to be put down. HELP!