It’s Not the Dog That’s on Trial, It’s the Dog’s Owner

When a dog viciously attacks, do we blame the dog or do we blame the owners? That is the question at the heart of the dog-mauling trial of Marjorie Knoller and her husband Robert Noel, now underway in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Last year, the couple’s dog, Bane, tore apart a neighbor, Diane Whipple, as she stood in her apartment doorway. The couple argues that it was a tragic accident; prosecutors argue it was a crime.

It is not unusual for defendants to claim they are not responsible for a crime because they never intended to harm a victim. Even non-lawyers understand that to be guilty of a crime, a defendant must both commit a harmful act and possess criminal intent. But there is a fundamental misunderstanding as to what constitutes criminal intent.

Many people mistakenly believe that as long as they didn’t intend to harm anyone, they are not responsible for the harm they cause. In fact, the law holds people responsible for harm they intentionally cause or know is likely to occur.

A classic example is the drunk driver whose intent is to drive home but who ends up killing an innocent pedestrian along the way. The drunk driver may disclaim responsibility because he did not intend to kill anyone when he sat drunk behind the steering wheel. Yet his actions unquestionably led to the victim’s death.

If the drunk realized that he could hurt someone when he drove, he is guilty of murder. Even if he didn’t realize that he could kill someone but should have, he may still be guilty of manslaughter.

Similarly, it may not be enough for Knoller and Noel to claim that they are not responsible for the death of Whipple because they never intended for their dog to attack the victim.

The law does not just focus on a defendant’s intent at the time of the attack. Rather, a person is responsible for the harm that naturally results from actions he or she sets in motion.

If a defendant engages in a series of callous acts that ultimately result in a predictable harm, that defendant is guilty of a crime.

Most tragic events that occur in our society are the result of a series of irresponsible actions rather than any one intentional act. Take, for example, the parent who leaves a loaded gun in the house. Undoubtedly, the parent does not intend for the gun to be used by a child to shoot another child. But by leaving the loaded gun around, the parent has begun a series of events that is likely to end in tragedy.

Similarly, a dog owner may be responsible for the acts of her dog even if she doesn’t sic the dog on the victim. If the owner knows she has a dog that has the tendency to attack and keeps that dog in an environment where innocent people are at risk, then the owner is legally responsible if the dog lashes out.

It is no defense that the owner couldn’t control the dog at the time of the attack if the owner could have prevented that situation from arising in the first place.

Legal responsibility includes responsibility for those acts that will inevitably lead to harm. The defense in the dog-mauling case is betting on the jury focusing narrowly on the time of the attack and believing that Knoller did everything she could at that point to prevent the attack.

Prosecutors, however, are constantly reminding jurors that Knoller and Noel got the ball rolling when they acquired a dog they knew could be vicious, ignored its prior attacks (including on themselves) and kept the dog in an environment where they could not guarantee other people’s safety.

Prosecutors in the dog-mauling case are asking jurors to do what Americans tend not to do naturally: Look at a person’s actions in a broader context.

Americans have been trained to believe that we do not have a duty to help our fellow man as long as we do not intentionally harm him. But that is only half the law. The law also recognizes that our actions or lack of action, if unreasonable or callous, also makes us responsible for harm.

In general, we do a poor job of looking out for one another.

We tend to justify our actions by focusing narrowly on the last set of events before the harm and claim that those actions were out of our control.

The law, however, offers a broader focus. It asks, who allowed the dogs out?