[dogmelissa]

omg... I can't believe I forgot to update!!!!!! I'm SO sorry!!!!!!

Ok, here's what happened, briefly (I promise I'll post more later).
Daniel Haskett changed his plea to guilty (on both animal cruelty charges & failure to comply with police), and they read the same statement of facts (almost word for word) into the record. It was horrible to hear it again. Tamara Chaney (the lady who started the petition) was in attendance, and had not heard this before, and she was sobbing. The rest of us who had heard it before were crying but it wasn't as shocking to hear it again (still hard, but not as shocking).

The long and short of it is that he is also going to be sent for psychiatric evaluation and a pre-sentence report, and due to lawyer vacations, will not be back in court until August 1 to face sentencing.

His brother was there (older? younger? the one who owned Daisy Duke??) and the same group of protesters from Edmonton were there (someone had made a "display" of a black stuffed animal dog with duct tape around it's feet & muzzle and a rope around it's neck and covered it in red paint and it was truly horrible; completely over the line, IMO), media was all over it and there's lots of stuff on the 'net about it (I'll link some articles tonight).

Daniel was also in court on his un-related assault charges, but he did not have a lawyer on that matter. They weren't sure if he would be eligible for "legal aid" so pushed those off until June 18 to give him time to find a lawyer for those charges. I will also be at that court date, as I think it'll make a difference if he gets a conviction for that charge before the sentencing for animal cruelty, then it might change his sentence. I don't know if they'll have decided by then or if the judge who sentences him will see that and looks at the date of it will even take it into consideration, but I still want to go.

Again, I am terribly sorry that I didn't update sooner... things have been chaotic in my life the last few weeks. I will get online tonight and link some more articles as well as add more of my notes.

The good news is that he's an adult, and he plead guilty, so he *will* almost certainly get jail time. The question is whether or not they will give him the maximum (6 months) or not, and even if they do, he'll likely serve no more than 3 months of it. But at least that's something worse than probation.

More later (and HUGE apologies again!),
Melissa