Felony anticruelty bill passes Kansas House

The legislature in Kansas has agreed to make intentional injury and killing of animals a felony. The House passed a version of a bill which State Senator David Haley has been pushing for years. (Past coverage: here and here.) As an article in the Wichita Eagle notes, the bills passed by each chamber are slightly different. The Senate version elevated to a felony repeat cruelty by abandonment or intentional failure to provide an animal with necessities; the House removed that provision.

If our reading of this messy mockup of the bill is correct, the House committee also added some ancient-sounding, and annoying, changes to the bill as well. The current statute punishes intentional killing, injuring, etc. an animal. (It should go without saying: there is an exception for killing for food or sport). Haley's bill also punished reckless killing, injuring, etc., but that language was removed. Instead an offender must have, in addition to intent, malice, which is defined in the bill as "actual evil-mindedness or specific intent to do a harmful act without a reasonable justification or excuse." A Google search revealed that "actual evil-mindedness" is a Kansan term for specific intent, i.e. intent not only to do the killing or injuring, but to get a certain result: harm to the animal. If the modern term works, why double it up with an old one? That retro thing is so last year. In addition, the committee added, in an exception for animal husbandry, a reference to "careful and thrifty" management of herds, which is, ahem, the definition of husbandry.

This quibbling aside, the bill in Kansas sends a message that the state is somewhat serious about violence against companion animals. Unfortunately the bill's long route to passage, see, e.g., here, undermines that message. Kudos to Senator Haley for his persistence.