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Should it be illegal not to put down your sick dog? A case before the SJC is asking the question.
Maryann Russo wanted her 14-year-old dog to die at home. Prosecutors say she allowed the animal to suffer longer than it should have.
Massachusetts’s highest court is questioning whether a dog owner should face animal cruelty charges after going against a veterinarian’s advice and refusing to euthanize her terminally ill pet, despite the animal’s “super painful” condition.
The case stems from an animal cruelty charge filed against Maryann Russo in 2021. A lower court and an appeals court previously threw out the criminal complaint, with a Quincy District Court judge ruling that state animal cruelty law does not include “an affirmative obligation to euthanize an animal loved and cared for by its owner.”
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The tricky case is now in the Supreme Judicial Court’s hands following yet another appeal from prosecutors, leaving the justices to ponder whether failing to euthanize an ill pet constitutes animal abuse.
The background
According to court documents, Russo brought her 14-year-old dog, Tipper, to the vet on Christmas Day in 2020 for a large mass on his side. Russo declined the vet’s recommendation of surgery and took Tipper home, only to return a few weeks later when the dog “was unable to stand or walk, had bedsores, anemia, labored breathing, and an open necrotic wound,” prosecutors said.
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By then, the vet determined the dog was too ill for surgery and recommended euthanasia, as Tipper’s pain was allegedly beyond control.
When Russo instead opted to take Tipper home and indicated she would bring the dog to another doctor for a second opinion, the vet grew concerned and reported suspected cruelty to the Animal Rescue League of Boston.
A police officer who visited Russo’s home to investigate allegedly reported that the dog was stiff, barely breathing, and appeared to be uncomfortable. The officer obtained a warrant and had Tipper euthanized.
Animal cruelty or a ‘no-win situation’?
The state’s animal cruelty law makes it a crime for pet owners to willfully allow their animals to be subjected to “unnecessary torture, suffering or cruelty of any kind.” During oral arguments before the Supreme Judicial Court Wednesday, the justices grappled with how to apply the law in Russo’s case.
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“As I look at the statute, what I’m stuck on is the word ‘willfully’ and how we’re going to interpret that,” Justice Frank Gaziano said. “Sometimes we say ‘willfully’ means ‘intentionally, by design, not accident,’ and then sometimes we say ‘willfully’ means you have to intend the harmful consequences.”
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Assistant District Attorney Tracey Cusick asserted there was “ample evidence” that the dog was suffering, that Russo was aware, and that she took no steps to alleviate his pain or provide palliative care to prevent her pet from suffering further.
“While death is inevitable for all living creatures, suffering and pain is not,” Cusick said. “And so I suggest here that this animal had a prolonged, painful suffering that the defendant knowingly and willfully authorized and permitted the animal to be subjected to.”
Yet Jason Bolio, Russo’s attorney, pushed back on prosecutors’ narrative.
“I would suggest the physical condition of the animal and the condition in which the animal was found would suggest that there’s no evidence of abuse, that everything was being done to provide palliative care,” he contended, prompting a cry of “come on” from Justice Scott Kafker.
“There’s no evidence that this was the right way of dealing with this dog?” a skeptical Kafker asked.
Bolio replied: “I’m not saying that it’s the right way of dealing with the dog and I’m not saying that if it was my dog, that I may have put the dog to sleep. But what I’m suggesting is there was no evidence that she intentionally and actively abused this animal.”
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He asserted that nothing could have been done to control the dog’s suffering, but that Russo and her family tried to keep Tipper comfortable in his dying days.
“She was in a no-win situation, a situation that I think all of us that are blessed to own pets are faced with,” Bolio said.
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