To steal a bit from the late, great Norm MacDonald, it's finally official – second-degree manslaughter is legal in the state of Oklahoma!
In what's considered a landmark verdict for people who want to own dangerous dogs, but face no criminal accountability when those dogs get loose and kill a person, a jury acquitted Antwon Burks yesterday of second-degree manslaughter charges after his dogs killed Cecille Short in April of 2017.
The jury did this despite there being a documented history of Burks' killer dogs – which he paid $8,000 for – escaping from his backyard and causing havoc in the neighborhood.
Via The Oklahoman:
Neighbors of the victim testified for the prosecution about seeing the dogs roaming loose over and over. They told jurors Burks knew because he would apologize on the Nextdoor app.
"There was always an acknowledgment and an excuse," one prosecution witness, John Mallory, said.
He described how he kept the dogs away from frightened children in the days before Short was killed. Eventually that day, he confined them to fenced-in tennis courts.
Witnesses told jurors about arming themselves because of the dogs and about how they would not let children in their care play outside. One witness described how the dogs acted aggressively as he and his wife walked a puppy.
One neighbor distributed a flyer in the neighborhood after seeing the dogs try to get at another dog on Oct. 30, 2016. A male on a bicycle got between the dogs and their target, according to testimony.
Maybe it's due to me and my dogs being attacked by other dogs a few times while walking through our neighborhood, but I think if you make a conscious decision to own dogs that have the ability to kill a human, and these dogs repeatedly escape from your property because you won't properly secure it, and then they actually go out and kill someone in an unprovoked attack, your probably guilty of some criminal act and should spend a little time in jail. But then again, what do I know. I'm apparently not a moronic juror.