Illinois Bans Possession of Dogs by Convicted Felons

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Jeff White

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I kid you not. The state is drowning in debt. Medicaid providers are going out of business because the state is so slow paying it's bills. Money is borrowed from pension funds and special funds to pay for day to day operations of government. The governor wants to sell the lottery to raise money to fund education.....And the General Assembly has time to pass a law saying convicted felons can't own dogs larger then 30 pounds in weight. :eek:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...E637016831A8A0E98625718000139D23?OpenDocument
Illinois measures crack down on owners of dangerous dogs
By Kevin McDermott
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
06/01/2006

SPRINGFIELD, Ill.

The dogs had their day in Springfield Wednesday, as Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed three laws restricting how the animals are treated and used.

One of the measures makes Illinois the first state in the nation to specifically address the use of dogs as weapons by criminals. It prohibits convicted felons from owning dogs for 10 years after completing their sentences, unless the dogs have been spayed or neutered. The rationale is that neutered dogs are less likely to be dangerous.

"We . . . became aware of the problem of drug manufacturers keeping dangerous dogs in order to have those dogs attack law enforcement officers as they perform their duties," state Sen. William Haine, D-Alton, a co-sponsor of the measure, said in a written statement. "This bill will give law enforcement and prosecutors another tool to fight these criminals."

Blagojevich also signed a bill increasing penalties for dog owners who fail to control their pets, resulting in death or serious injury to a person. That offense could net a five-year prison term under the new law. Another measure, signed Wednesday, increases various penalties for dog fighting.

The law increasing penalties for dog attacks, HB4238, goes into effect immediately. The laws restricting ownership of dogs by felons, and increasing penalties for dog fighting - HB2946 and HB4711, respectively - go into effect Jan. 1

[email protected] 217-782-4912
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Here is the actual law:
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ful...=50&GA=94&DocTypeID=HB&DocNum=2946&print=true
HB2946 Enrolled LRB094 05402 RLC 35447 b

1 AN ACT concerning criminal law.

2 Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
3 represented in the General Assembly:

4 Section 5. The Criminal Code of 1961 is amended by adding
5 Section 12-36 as follows:

6 (720 ILCS 5/12-36 new)
7 Sec. 12-36. Possession of certain dogs by felons
8 prohibited.
9 (a) For a period of 10 years commencing upon the release of
10 a person from incarceration, it is unlawful for a person
11 convicted of a forcible felony, a felony violation of the
12 Humane Care for Animals Act, a felony violation of Article 24
13 of the Criminal Code of 1961, a felony violation of Class 3 or
14 higher of the Illinois Controlled Substances Act, a felony
15 violation of Class 3 or higher of the Cannabis Control Act, or
16 a felony violation of Class 2 or higher of the Methamphetamine
17 Control and Community Protection Act, to knowingly own,
18 possess, have custody of, or reside in a residence with,
19 either:
20 (1) an unspayed or unneutered dog or puppy older than
21 12 weeks of age; or
22 (2) irrespective of whether the dog has been spayed or
23 neutered, any dog that has been determined to be a vicious
24 dog under Section 15 of the Animal Control Act.
25 (b) Any dog owned, possessed by, or in the custody of a
26 person convicted of a felony, as described in subsection (a),
27 must be microchipped for permanent identification.
28 (c) Sentence. A person who violates this Section is guilty
29 of a Class A misdemeanor.
30 (d) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under this
31 Section that the dog in question is neutered or spayed, or that
32 the dog in question was neutered or spayed within 7 days of the




HB2946 Enrolled - 2 - LRB094 05402 RLC 35447 b

1 defendant being charged with a violation of this Section.
2 Medical records from, or the certificate of, a doctor of
3 veterinary medicine licensed to practice in the State of
4 Illinois who has personally examined or operated upon the dog,
5 unambiguously indicating whether the dog in question has been
6 spayed or neutered, shall be prima facie true and correct, and
7 shall be sufficient evidence of whether the dog in question has
8 been spayed or neutered. This subsection (d) is not applicable
9 to any dog that has been determined to be a vicious dog under
10 Section 15 of the Animal Control Act.
Click to expand...

I can't wait to make my first felon in possession of a dog arrest....:rolleyes:

Jeff
 
Why not make the people in prisons do manual labor to pay for the government's operations? Jail shouldnt be free. Prisoners should have to pay the average rent for the area just like everybody else does....and you dont get out until you're all paid up. Put them to work picking up trash or digging ditches or being targets for military live fire exercises or something.

Back to the topic at hand, I think enforcement of this is gonna be a huge waste of time. LEO's should worry about CATCHING the felons, not worriying about if they own dogs or not.
 
Why not make the people in prisons do manual labor to pay for the government's operations?
Click to expand...


because that would make sense, and here in illinois, we have better things to do like blocking highway traffic down to one lane so police can make sure everyone is wearing their seatbelts :rolleyes:
 
Gee, Jeff,

Yet another reason why cops are so dangerously grumpy. This is not good.

What if the guy gets a lighter dog, and loves it so much that he spoils it with extra food, so as to put it over the weight limit?

What if the guy was a perfectly honest dog breeder (of, say, Chihuahuas) before feloniously defacing the tax stamp on a pack of smokes, and wants to get back to the only livelihood he knows, after he gets out?

Edited to correct spelling.
 
Yes, but

don't forget they were bred to be eaten. My hypothesis is, that the obnoxious Chihuahua personality was bred into them on purpose, so the Aztecs/Toltecs etc. wouldn't feel so bad when it came time to kill them and eat them.
 
:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

I pray that I get into a school outside of this state. I am shocked at how stupid the local government is. They are not addressing the problems but keep doing stupid things like this.
 
Will we see people putting their dogs on slimming diets to avoid felony charges? Would cops stop dog-walkers and weigh their pets? Jeff -- come to Tennessee! You are too good of a cop for Illinois. Once you and the rest of THR leave, I'll ask the space aliens to eat Daley and then dust Chicago from orbit just to be sure.

:scrutiny:
 
Why not just neuter all convicted felons ?
Click to expand...


You forgot Illinois Governors Motto,

"Will the defendant please rise and face the jury"
Click to expand...
*

What Govenor will sign a bill that will neuter them?

I still think that the only reason the George Ryan (Most recent newly convicted govenor :) ) started the death penalty moratorium was so that he would not have to worry about it after he was convicted.

For those of you who have the pleasure of not being from Illinois, Ryan was involved in bribes for drivers license commercial and personal, one of the illeagly licensed drivers had and accident the burned 6 children to death.

NukemJim



* DonP
 
Jeff - I've read that law now 10 times and no where in it do I see a restriction on any dog over 30lbs. Can you clarify where this info comes from? Perhaps I'm glossing over it in my reading.
 
Awesome. Just awesome.

Been making a lot of home improvements lately. I can't decide whether I'm doing it to make a better home or to raise the resale value so I can move. I guess we'll see.

I had to take a detour off Rte. 4 in my little podunk town in the middle of the day yesterday to avoid a seatbelt checkpoint. My wife has become very tolerant of my antics, but it took some explaining to my boys (we're all out for about a week before new classes and summer school teaching start.) It's difficult for them to understand why dad says the police are mostly good guys, but dad doesn't want to pull over and let those same policemen check through his car.
 
What if the guy was a perfectly honest dog breeder (of, say, Chihuahuas) before feloniously defacing the tax stamp on a pack of smokes, and wants to get back to the only livelihood he knows, after he gets out?
Click to expand...

I kinda doubt that you can even, with massive loads of Milk-Bones, get a Chihuahua up to 30 pounds. That dog wouldn't even be able to move under its own power.

Geez, IL is screwed up beyond belief.
 


I pray that I get into a school outside of this state. I am shocked at how stupid the local government is. They are not addressing the problems but keep doing stupid things like this.
Click to expand...

If you come to the Univ of Illinois at Champaign, you'll see a new level of stupid.
 
Dogs and Guns, treated the same in Illinois

One of my wife's good friends is a dog person with two mid-sized little yappers and an older German Shepherd around her house. She also can't understand why anyone (me included) "needs" some of those awful guns around the house. She understands shotguns and maybe even a deer rifle, but those EBR's and handguns, eeek!

We got into a conversation after the city council talked about passing what they call BSL's (Breed Specific Laws) to outlaw any and all pit bulls and related breeds that can be used for dog fighting, Rottweilers etc.

She thought is was incredibly stupid and wrong to punish all the good dogs and dog owners for the deeds of a few criminals that used dogs for fighting.

I asked her what the difference was between that and punishing all gun owners for the activities of a few criminals in Englewood or some other city neighborhoods.

I said, after all that no one really "needs" a Rottweiler or pit bull. Couldn't all Illinois dog owners just get along with a nice Cocker Spaniel and just turn all their current dogs into the state police?

Well of course with dogs it's "totally different" but I think I saw the actual glint of comprehension in her little tiny sheeple brain.
 
Maybe I missed it when reading the law, but is there a Grandfather clause? If a felon already has a 30 pound dog, does he have to get rid of it?

Man, I'm glad I live in Idaho.

Biker
 
Here's what you LEO's need to start doing. CLOSE YOUR EYES! You can't arrest a guy for owning a dog if you don't see the dog. And yes, I'm perfectly serious. You are cops. You have the guns, your bosses have pens. Who do you think would win that arguement?

No, I'm not saying that you would have to shoot your superiors. But your bosses wouldn't need to know that you didn't see a dog. If they don't know, you don't get in trouble. Do you guys understand what I'm saying?

As Andy Taylor once said, "Sometimes you gotta forget the law & focus on the people."
 
"We . . . became aware of the problem of drug manufacturers keeping dangerous dogs in order to have those dogs attack law enforcement officers as they perform their duties," state Sen. William Haine, D-Alton, a co-sponsor of the measure, said in a written statement. "This bill will give law enforcement and prosecutors another tool to fight these criminals."
Click to expand...

So you can't simply enforce the existing law and send them to jail for manufacturing the illegal drugs ?

Whats next , someone doing a study and find out that the druggies wear blue shirts more than red ones and make it a crime for them to wear blue ?

These people are so amazingly stupid ,they pass these dumb laws all the while they moan and cry because we "America" has so many people in our prison system and imply that this is wrong .

They just don't get it if you're a scumbag criminal you belong in jail , if that means we have to build more prisons and have 50 million people in jail so be it .
 
Heck, who needs dogs when you can have one of Snowball's kittens? Here is Snowball...

giantcat.jpg


OK, so its a hoax. For now. Now where did I put that gene splicing kit? :evil:
 
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