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Case #792 Rating: 3.4 out of 5
Dog beaten to death
San Francisco, CA (US)Incident Date: Wednesday, May 14, 1997
County: San Francisco
Disposition: Convicted
Defendant/Suspect: Joey Trimm
Case Updates: 1 update(s) available
On May 14, 1997 in San Francisco, Guinness, a four-month-old Shepherd-mix puppy was beaten to death. Twenty-nine-year-old Joey Trimm admitted spanking the puppy because it was eating the cat food. Trimm said the puppy turned around and bit his left forearm and he really got mad and punched the puppy's head about three times with his fist.
When Trimm's live-in girlfriend later returned home, she said she found the puppy lying on the bed motionless and whimpering. The puppy died and she gave the puppy mouth-to-mouth without success.
Joey Trimm then put the puppy in a laundry bag and dumped it in a public trashcan. The girlfriend called the police and Trimm was arrested. When the police looked at Trimm's arm, they saw no blood. The skin wasn't broken.
There have been many legal delays since May 1997. Trimm has been held in custody since 1997 on $50,000 bail, which he has not been able to make.
At a July 26, 1999 preliminary hearing, veterinarian Ruth Dilts testified that the puppy, Guinness, "had a large deep bruise to the whole top of its head, the left side of its rib cage had several fractured ribs. The ribs were fractured inward. The ribs had punctured the lung on the left side. There was blood in the chest cavity. There were massive fractures of most of the left lobes of the liver."
Trimm has two prior sexual violent felonies and Deputy D.A. Chuck Haines charged him under the state's three strikes law. On June 26, 1990, Joey Trimm was convicted in Humboldt County of oral copulation of a person under 14 years of age by force or fear. Trimm was also convicted of anal penetration with a foreign object by force or fear. (Note from Voices For Pets: The child was 3 years old.)
A trial date of January 3, 2000 was cancelled. The defense made a motion to have Trimm's prior convictions eliminated as possible strikes, based upon the claim that he did not have competent representation and did not understand the full consequences of his guilty plea. The judge found in favor of the defendant. Trimm, who has been in jail since May 1997, then wanted to change his plea on the animal cruelty charge from not-guilty to guilty, so that he could receive time served and walk out of jail a free man.
Deputy D.A. Chuck Haines appealed the judge's decision and everything was put on hold. Trimm remained in jail while the Appeals Court made a decision, either overturning the judge's ruling or upholding it, which would result either in a jury trial or Trimm walking out of the courtroom and back into the community.
State Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office handled the appeal and won. The Court of Appeals overturned the judge's decision and reinstated Trimm's previous convictions as strikes. The case was sent back to San Francisco for trial to begin April 28th, but this did not happen. When I asked Deputy D.A. Haines what had happened, he started saying things like "We have already put a lot of resources into this case," "Trimm has already served more time waiting for trial than he would have if found guilty of cruelty to an animal," "The judge might plea bargain on his own," etc. Haines said, "I am still not offering Trimm a deal." I don't mean to take too much away from Deputy Haines. He is the first D.A. to charge three strikes in a cruelty to animal case.
It is true that the San Francisco D.A.'s office put a lot of time and money into this case, paid for with our tax dollars. It is also true that the public defender's office spent a lot of time and money defending Trimm, also paid for with our tax dollars.
There is no trial scheduled but there is a sentencing date of May 25, 2000.
More background: In a March 1990 interview, Trimm admitted to throwing cats into walls or fences and inserting pencils into their rectums. In the attack on the 3-year-old child, Trimm punched the boy in the stomach and hit him on both sides of the head, leaving marks that were visible the next day. Trimm then urinated on him before forcing his penis into the boy's mouth and shoving the wooden handle of a bathroom plunger into the boy's rectum. For his crimes against the boy, Trimm was sentenced to 10 years, but like most violent criminals, he only did a fraction of his time before being released.
Case UpdatesOn June 1 in San Francisco Superior Court, Joey Trimm was sentenced to five years in State Prison for killing Guinness, a four-month-old puppy. Out of that five years, with time served (Trimm has been in prison for three years) and time off, the total actual time he will serve is 3 years and 5 months. Therefore, Trimm will be back in the community by December 2000.
This is more time than anyone has ever served for cruelty to an animal. Trimm is also the first person to be convicted under the Three Strikes Law for cruelty to an animal. However, because under the plea bargain agreement one of Trimm's previous strikes was dropped and he only pleaded guilty to felony cruelty to an animal with one previous strike, he therefore received only five years.
Source: Voices For Pets - http://www.voicesforpets.org/pages/defending_histories_guinn.html | | Update posted on Feb 16, 2003 - 7:41PM |
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