In a case stemming from a man who killed a pit bull when he and his Chihuahua felt threatened, an appeals court ruled Wednesday that Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law can apply to cases involving animals.
A three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal said a Palm Beach County circuit judge improperly denied a stand-your-ground immunity hearing for Cassanova Gabriel, who was charged with crimes including cruelty to animals.
The court’s main opinion, written by Judge Burton Conner and joined by Judge Dorian Damoorgian, concluded that “a person is immune from criminal prosecution for the use of deadly force against an animal where the person has a reasonable belief that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another.” Judge Ed Artau wrote a concurring opinion.
A motion filed in May in Palm Beach County circuit court seeking a stand-your-ground hearing said Gabriel was walking his Chihuahua near his father’s apartment building on Sept. 8, 2022, when they were threatened by a large pit bull. The motion said Gabriel tried to kick the pit bull away, but it became more aggressive.
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Gabriel fired warning shots to try to scare away the pit bull but ultimately shot the dog, the motion said. Gabriel later was arrested on charges of cruelty to animals while in possession of a firearm, discharging a firearm in public and discharging a firearm in a residential area.
The long-controversial stand your ground law says a person is justified in using deadly force if there is reasonable belief it is “necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.” In such situations, the law says, a person “does not have a duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground.”
Defendants who contend they acted in self-defense can seek immunity from prosecution in pre-trial hearings. But in Gabriel’s case, the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office said he was not entitled to a hearing because the law “does not apply to defense against animals.”
Circuit Judge Scott Suskauer agreed with prosecutors, writing in June that the law is “applicable only in cases involving person to person interactions. Nothing in the statutory language reasonably leads to the conclusion that the statute is, or should be, applied to animal interactions.”
The appeals court, however, said Wednesday that Suskauer “misinterpreted the statutory language” and sent the case back to the lower court.
“We recognize our opinion may make criminal prosecutions for animal cruelty more challenging for the state when a defendant claims self-defense. … However, it is up to the Legislature to address the issue as it sees fit,” a footnote in Wednesday’s main opinion said.
Suskauer’s June decision said a defendant had attempted to use the stand-your-ground law in at least one other Palm Beach County case involving an animal — an iguana. But he wrote that Judge Jeffrey Gillen in 2021 ruled that the law did not apply to animal interactions.
“In that case, (the) defense filed a motion for pre-trial immunity … arguing that the defendant was entitled to kick and ultimately kill an iguana after the iguana bit the defendant,” Suskauer wrote.
