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Case #13964 Rating: 3.6 out of 5
Mayor abandons 10 dogs in national forest
Marianna, AR (US)Incident Date: Monday, Jun 9, 2008
County: Lee
Charges: Misdemeanor
Disposition: Convicted
Defendant/Suspect: James Valley
Case Updates: 4 update(s) available
A Helena-West Helena judge on Wednesday refused to sign a criminal complaint against the city's mayor accusing him of authorizing the release of stray dogs near a national forest last week.
Judge Jesse E. Porter Jr. of Helena-West Helena District Court wants another judge to review the Humane Society of Southeast Arkansas' complaint against Mayor James Valley.
"The warrant on Mayor Valley was presented to the judge, and he noted on the face of the warrant to have a circuit judge or a district judge from another county review," court clerk Shay Shields said. "He did not sign the warrant." Porter did not return a phone call Wednesday seeking comment. The affidavit for an arrest warrant needs to be signed by a judge for the case to proceed in court.
The affidavit, signed Monday by Humane Society of Southeast Arkansas Director Ruby Burton, accuses Valley of 10 counts or more of abandonment and a count of cruelty and neglect from Jan. 9 to June 11.
Valley has said that on June 11 he authorized a city worker to release eight or 10 dogs near the St. Francis National Forest at the edge of town.
According to Arkansas Code 5-62-101, "a person commits the offense of cruelty to animals if, except as authorized by law, he or she knowingly abandons any animal; subjects any animal to cruel mistreatment; subjects any animal in his or her custody to cruel neglect; or kills or injures any animal belonging to another without legal privilege or consent of the owner." Cruelty to animals is a class A misdemeanor.
Valley, an attorney, said he has not committed a crime.
"The Humane Society is up to their regular old shenanigans, trying to get a man arrested for nothing," Valley said. "Sometimes that happens in a democracy, but you're innocent until proven guilty." First Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Fletcher Long said he received complaints from residents and animal-welfare activists and told them how to fill out a criminal complaint and get it to the district judge.
"It wouldn't have taken a genius at that point in time in my position to know that you might run into a district judge who would say: 'I'd just rather not do this given who's involved, '" Long said.
Valley said he expects a special judge from another district to handle the case, as has happened in the past when city officials are involved.
For example, in February special District Judge John Martin was assigned to handle a complaint that the city's interim police chief, Fred Fielder, withheld records from The Daily World newspaper. Martin issued a warrant for Fielder's arrest on accusations he violated the Freedom of Information Act.
The mayor admitted authorizing an animal control officer to let the dogs go near the city landfill and St. Francis National Forest. The mayor said it was the best thing to do for the animals because the makeshift shelter - four pens at the sanitation department - was inadequate. He also said the city lacked the time or personnel to properly care for the dogs.
Valley noted that he's working on a solution on what to do with strays in the future. He said an unnamed contributor has offered between $ 5, 000 and $ 15, 000 to help build a shelter, and the mayor said that if the Humane Society will care for the dogs, the city would pledge at least $ 1, 000 a month for administrative costs.
But animal-welfare activists still have concerns.
On the day Valley ordered the dogs let out, the director of the Animal Shelter of the Delta, Gloria Higginbotham, said she offered to round up volunteers to take the animals and care for them until they could be adopted.
"I met with the mayor, and he said he was going to dump the dogs at Storm Creek. And I said, ' Don't do anything. We'll be back in two hours.' But he had already dumped them," Higginbotham said.
She said volunteers have found, and are caring for, two of the 14 or so dogs she believes were released near the national forest. Valley said eight to 10 dogs were let go.
Two more dogs were taken to the animal shelter in Jonesboro, and three were shot dead by a resident who saw them on his property, Higginbotham said. Seven more dogs remain missing, Higginbotham said.
The events have drawn the attention of animal-welfare activists from all over the country.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals issued a news release this week saying it has contacted the mayor's office, the city attorney, state prosecutors and the Arkansas Animal Control Association to ensure proper action is taken.
"I've certainly never heard of anything quite like this," said Stacy Wolf, an attorney and legislative director for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
"We've heard anecdotally about animal control officers letting dogs go because there's no place to bring it. I can't recall ever hearing of... a decision by a government official to release the dogs from a shelter facility." Valley said he knows his actions upset others, as he's received scores of angry e-mails and calls from people all over.
"I've got e-mails from Canada and all over the country: Arizona, California, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas," Valley said.
"I've been getting calls, emails, all that. I even got a fax from somebody. They're all saying the same thing: that they're appalled and outraged, that it's cruel and inhumane.... And then it generated into name-calling. They've called me A-hole, stupid, idiotic, asinine."
Case UpdatesThe U.S. Forest Service has ordered a mayor in Arkansas to pay $1,900 in fines and restitution for instructing a city employee to "dump two loads of dogs" in the St. Francis National Forest. A forest service spokeswoman says Helena-West Helena Mayor James Valley violated a federal prohibition against abandoning property in national forests and reached the penalty agreement with the federal agency and the U.S. Attorney's Office. Of the total, $300 will be paid in fines and $1,600 will be paid to Northeast Arkansans for Animals to compensate the group for its work in locating and rescuing the dogs. Valley did not immediately return a call for comment.
In June, he said he was faced with a dilemma as the city was trying to deal with a stray-dogs problem while residents complained that a dilapidated shelter at the city's sanitation department was inadequate.
He said he had about 10 dogs released June 11th near the national forest in eastern Arkansas and did not believe he had done anything illegal. He said the dogs were better off free.
After the dogs were released, two or 3 of them were shot by a resident who saw them on his land. Others were found by animal rescue workers. | Source: 5 News - Dec 19, 2008
Update posted on Dec 19, 2008 - 2:01PM |
Helena-West Helena Mayor James Valley lost his right to practice law for 30 days Friday, but said he had more pressing matters demanding his attention.
"Essentially, I'm not practicing law now, I'm busy chasing dogs," Valley said after the Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct suspended his law license for poor legal representation on a 1999 child-support case.
In June, Valley released dogs from the city's makeshift animal shelter into the St. Francis National Forest, bringing international condemnation on the Phillips County seat, population of about 15, 000.
A criminal complaint against Valley accuses him of misdemeanor animal cruelty. Valley this week filed a complaint against Ruby Burton, the director of the Humane Society of Southeast Arkansas.
In his law-license hearing, Valley said he has billed fewer than 20 hours in his general law practice since becoming mayor at the end of 2005. His job as mayor fills 80-85 hours of his week, he said.
"The mayor's office has taken tremendous amount of time. Much more than I thought," Valley said.
The professional-conduct committee said he should have done more to serve his client, Zederick Jackson, who hired Valley in September 1999 to reduce his weekly child-support payments and back payments. Jackson contacted the professional conduct office in 2007 after he said he couldn't contact Valley about his case.
Valley didn't file a petition for 14 months after their first meeting. And the petition was never acted upon or dismissed.
After being contacted by the committee, Valley called Jackson and offered to repay his $ 300 fee.
"I sent him a check for peacekeeping purposes, not because I thought I owed him," Valley told the seven-person panel. "I didn't want to be sitting here with you all." Valley did mail Jackson a check in September but dated it Sept. 27, 2008, making it impossible to cash, said Michael Harmon, who prosecuted the case against Valley.
Valley said he mistakenly put the wrong year on the check. "It was a misprint," he said. | Source: NWA News - July 19, 2008
Update posted on Jul 20, 2008 - 9:39PM |
A mayor who faces a misdemeanor charge of obstructing Humane Society work by releasing strays into a national forest now wants charges brought against a Humane Society director.
Mayor James F. Valley is seeking an arrest warrant against Ruby Burton of Monticello on charges of disorderly conduct, criminal mischief and commercial burglary.
Valley says in his affidavit, filed July 10 in Helena-West Helena Municipal Court, that Burton and others came on city property without authority, damaged public property, and interfered with city management of stray dogs.
Burton, who heads the Humane Society of Southeastern Arkansas, said Thursday she was not surprised by the mayor's actions against her. She said she and her group were trying to remove strays the city kept in intolerable conditions and she believed they had city permission.
"It was a filthy place. He had like 10 dogs on one side all in there together. There was a smaller dog and he couldn't even get a drink of water, and there was a pit (bull) attacking them. It was a Stephen King nightmare."
Last month, Burton filed a complaint with the Phillips County sheriff's office after the mayor ordered city employees to release 10 dogs into the St. Francis National Forest. A judge issued an arrest warrant for Valley on misdemeanor charges of animal abandonment, mistreatment and neglect.
At the time, Valley said he released the dogs because the city dog pound was uninhabitable and a makeshift shelter at the sanitation shop had become the target of numerous citizen complaints and was too costly for the city to maintain.
Some of the dogs were later found; three others were shot by a resident who saw them on his land.
Valley, who maintains his innocence, said Thursday he has been served with the arrest warrant issued after Burton's complaint but does not yet have a court appearance set. He said he understood that the Arkansas Supreme Court will assign a special judge to consider his affidavit against Burton.
In his affidavit, Valley said Burton and others came to the city pound Jan. 9 and damaged a lock and chain before removing animals from the pound without justification or proper authority.
Since then, he said, Burton has helped others in "forcefully coercing city employees to purchase dog kennels," putting dog kennels among heavy equipment at the city street and sanitation shop, climbing fences to tamper with the operations, driving past "Do Not Enter" signs at the shop gates, and refusing to check in at the shop office.
''More importantly, Ruby Burton has NEVER been authorized by any law enforcement agency in Phillips County Arkansas to take any steps affecting the welfare of any animals in Phillips County," the affidavit said. | Source: MyEyewitness News - July 18, 2008
Update posted on Jul 20, 2008 - 6:38PM |
A special judge has issued an arrest warrant for the mayor of Helena-West Helena on animal cruelty charges after he ordered 10 stray dogs turned loose in a nearby national forest.
In a one-page order, Circuit Judge David Henry of Stuttgart also found reasonable cause to arrest Mayor James Valley over accusations that he obstructed the Humane Society from caring for the animals.
Valley says he remains convinced he did not commit a crime when he ordered city workers to take the dogs to the nearby St. Francis National Forest and turn them loose earlier this month. He says the city couldn't afford to properly care for the animals.
Phillips County Sheriff Ronnie White said he hadn't seen the warrant as of Friday. He said that because the warrant is on misdemeanor charges, a deputy will likely notify Valley of his court date instead of arresting him.
All the charges against Valley are misdemeanors under Arkansas law. A court date has not been set. | Source: WREG - June 28, 2008
Update posted on Jun 28, 2008 - 11:31PM |
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