Terry Nathaniel Session didn't wear his prosthetic leg to his trial.
Even though the artificial appendage was a key part of his defense for stabbing a dog named Stormy in the head in Daytona North subdivision last year.
Also missing from Circuit Judge Kim C. Hammond's courtroom were Session's accusers: his ex-girlfriend and her mother who said she raised Stormy from a pup, only to be forced to euthanize the 70-pound lab mix after the stabbing.
When Destiny Keisler and her Mother, Cathy Keisler -- the prosecution's main witnesses -- didn't show, Hammond dismissed the charge of felony animal cruelty against Session.
Session, 40, said before the one-day trial on April 19, 2007 that he stabbed Stormy because he feared the dog was going to bite his good leg.
"I already lost one leg," he said. "I didn't want to lose the other. I'd be crippled or something."
Before trial, Session said he lost one leg in a drive-by shooting, and wanted to protect his other leg.
The incident occurred Sept. 1, 2006, on the Keislers' front porch. Sessions said he grabbed a steak knife and stabbed the dog when it appeared it would attack him.
The judge told jurors Session did not get off without any punishment because he has been in the crosshairs of the justice system since his arrest last year on the animal cruelty charge.
Session left the courtroom on April 19, 2007 a free man.
In a February deposition, Destiny Keisler countered Session's description of events. She said she warned Session the dog was on the front porch, but he went out anyway during a visit to Destiny.
Destiny Keisler testified that Stormy had not attacked Session on that Sept. 1 night on the front porch of her mother's North Daytona mobile home.
"Terry was instigating the dog . . . then he started like not getting up real close to it because he knows the dog will bite so he just started swinging at it . . . Going "grrr" like that right there. Talking about 'I'm not scared of that dog,' " Destiny Keisler said in the deposition.
She described Stormy as protective. Session's public defender, Regina Nunnally, questioned her.
"OK. So as Mr. Session is passing by, you are saying this protective barking dog didn't do anything but just look at him? Didn't come at him," Nunnally asked.
"No," Destiny Keisler responded, saying the dog did not attack Session.
Session and Destiny Keisler initially told her mother that someone else had stabbed the dog, according to the deposition.
Cathy Keisler eventually learned the truth. Cathy Keisler said in her deposition that Stormy did not bite Session, although the dog was capable of biting people.
"He was protective," Cathy Keisler said. "That's why I had that dog. He protected me, and I tried to protect him. But I didn't do too damn good, did I?" Neighborhood MapFor more information about the Interactive Animal Cruelty Maps, see the map notes.
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