Reginald Welton, 38, faces two to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced by state District Judge Mike Lynch on April 6. Welton waived trial by jury.
Welton, who owns the mobile food trailer Reggie's on Airport Boulevard near Manor Road, testified on Wednesday that when the attack occurred he had been visiting family in Beaumont and had left the dogs in the care of a friend for about five days.
State District Judge Mike Lynch ruled that Welton was criminally negligent in not securing his flimsy backyard fencing knowing that the dogs had escaped a month and a half earlier.
"It's pretty common knowledge that energetic dogs ... get bored and restless and look around for things to do," Lynch said. "It seems to me that a prudent person, once his young pit bulls have escaped ... would have gone back and looked at that backyard and made major changes."
The conviction is the first in Travis County under state legislation passed in 2007 that makes dog owners vulnerable to felony charges when their dogs attack.
Welton was convicted under part of the law that calls for a dog's owner to be charged when they act with criminal negligence — a deviation from the standard of care of an ordinary person — in allowing a dog's unprovoked attack that causes serious injury or death.
Another provision of the law states that it's a crime if an owner knows a dog has been labeled dangerous and it makes an unprovoked attack outside its enclosure causing death or injury requiring hospitalization.
The offense becomes a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, if a death occurs.
The law has been dubbed Lillian's Law after Lillian Stiles, a Thorndale woman who, at age 76 in 2005, was fatally mauled by her neighbor's six pit bull-Rottweiler mixes. The owner, Jose Hernandez, was indicted but acquitted by a Milam County jury of criminally negligent homicide.
During Welton's three-day trial in Lynch's court, Alfredo Hernandez testified that he was smoking in front of his sister's house on Samuel Huston Avenue in East Austin during a family Christmas gathering when two dogs came running at him.
The dogs knocked him over and began biting him, tearing his skin and breaking his arm.
Hernandez, 52, began slashing at the dogs with his pocketknife, but, he said, "They didn't want to stop."
Family members came to his aid, and police arrived and later shot the dogs.
Welton said he had previously tethered the dogs in his backyard but stopped after city officials told him tying up unattended dogs is illegal in Austin.
Welton said he had never seen his dogs attack anyone, though according to testimony they had killed another dog when they got out the month before the attack on Hernandez.
After retrieving his dogs from the animal shelter, Welton said he repaired holes in his fence and locked the gate.
"The fence was good and solid," he said.
Two other cases of attack by dog, a crime under the Texas health and safety code, are pending in Travis County. Prosecutor John Hunt, who said those two cases also involve pit bulls, said he hopes the verdict puts dog owners on alert.
"I think it sends a message to dog owners ... that they need to secure their animals," he said.
Attorney Ellie Ruth, who defended Welton, said that charging dog owners for the conduct of their pet is unfair.
"I think it's a very dangerous precedent to set to expose dog owners to criminal liability for basically their dogs getting out of their yard."
(Statesman - March 21, 2012)
