Opening arguments kick off coyote cruelty case

By RICHARD JENKINS

rjenkins@yourdailyglobe.com

Bessemer — The trial of Jason Charles Roberts, 34, of Ironwood began Tuesday in Gogebic County Circuit Court. Roberts is facing three animal cruelty-related charges in connection to a YouTube video of hunting dogs attacking a wounded coyote.

Roberts faces a felony charge of torturing an animal and misdemeanors for cruelty to an animal and failure to kill a wounded animal. The first charge carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison, while the other have maximum sentences of 93 days and 90 days, respectively.

Following a morning of jury selection, which resulted in nine men and four women being impanelled — one random juror will be dismissed from jury duty prior to deliberation — and procedural arguments, attorneys for both sides made their opening statements.

Gogebic County Prosecutor Nick Jacobs began by laying out the basic facts of the case, telling jurors the video was filmed in February 2014 while Roberts and Dale Scott Allen, 45, were hunting coyotes near Airport and Kane roads in Ironwood Township Feb. 24, 2014.

Allen is expected to be a witness for the defense in the case, Jacobs told the Daily Globe.

Jacobs told the jury the roughly six-minute video begins with the approach of the wounded coyote and runs for several minutes before the dogs arrive on the scene, attacking the coyote — ultimately killing it.

He described the attack for jurors, saying it was outside the lines of what is considered hunting.

“Suffice it to say, (the dogs) torment the hell out of (the coyote). They torture it, they mutilate it, they maim it, they drag it, they pull it — blood all over the snow,” Jacobs said. “It’s simply an unacceptable hunting practice. It’s not the way people should hunt.”

Jacobs said the case wasn’t an attack on hunting, hunters or even those who legally use dogs to chase game — including coyotes.

“My goodness, (hunting) is the U.P. way,” Jacobs said. “If they took away my hunting rights, I’d go insane in a minute ... it’s just a way of life for us.”

Rather, Jacobs argued the case was about acceptable hunting practices allowed by law.

Roberts’ attorney, Roy Polich, argued the case was an attack on hunting, saying his client was hunting a legal game animal and the fundamental nature of hunting made it exempt from the animal cruelty statutes.

“I believe this case, as it’s presented to you, is a move to eliminate hunting. Why were they in the woods? They were in the woods to kill a coyote,” Polich said. “The (Michigan Department of Natural Resources) sells licenses and has a season to kill coyotes. The objective is to kill coyotes. A coyote was killed.

“Now we’re here (deciding on) three counts because subjectively — when you look at the video — some people think, “Gee, I don’t like the way they killed that coyote.’”

He later expanded on the idea, telling the jury the video is a graphic depiction of a legal hunt society would prefer not to acknowledge.

“We’re here because we don’t want to see how animals die. We’re here because we grew up at Disney and the animals talk,” Polich said. “And we don’t want to see what happens at the meat-packing plants. And we don’t want to see how chickens are killed. And we don’t want to see how the seals in the Arctic, when they are killing seals with clubs — we don’t want to see it. And most people don’t want to see what happens to a coyote when it’s shot with buckshot.”

Polich discussed the idea of “acceptable hunting practices,” raising the fact that different types of hunting and fishing had different standards for acceptable conduct when killing an animal — using examples of allowing a wounded deer to bed down and bleed out when bow hunting or the legal requirement that traps be checked once every 48 hours to see if game has been caught in them.

He said both examples could likely be viewed as cruel by anti-hunters and didn’t fit the standard of not immediately killing a game animal as required by the second misdemeanor, a DNR game violation.

“Where does (the cruelty line) stop, where does it start?” Polich said. “Where it needs to stop is right here, right now.

“Because pretty soon any kind of hunting you do (will be illegal) ... if we’re going to prosecute people for cruelty to animals, cruelty to an animal we’re trying to kill because there is a designated season, where does it stop?”

Polich also added several facts to the the day of the hunt, including the fact the coyote was actually shot by Allen, the hunt took place in deep snow and there wasn’t any ammo left to shoot the coyote again after it was wounded.

Polich told jurors given the lack of more ammunition and deep snow, the coyote being killed by a dog was probably the most humane option available to his client.

Both Jacobs and Polich touched on the fact that the case wouldn’t be in court at all if the video wasn’t uploaded to YouTube.

The trial resumes at 9 a.m. today with the prosecution’s first witness, DNR Sgt. Grant Emery, who was the investigating officer in the case.