INJUSTICE IN TEXAS: Originally facing 10 YEARS IN PRISON, Bradley Glenn Boley, 61, jury gives him JUST 15 MONTHS for burning his puppy on the stove so badly it had to be euthanized

TEXAS -- A Dallas County jury deliberated for nearly seven hours Friday before returning a guilty verdict in the animal cruelty trial of a man who burned his 2½-month-old Chihuahua on a stove.

The panel of 10 men and two women then deliberated for another hour and 40 minutes to sentence Bradley Glenn Boley to 15 months in prison for putting his puppy in a kennel on a hot stove as punishment.

The dog, named Buddy, suffered burns on 100 percent of his body, a vet testified, and later had to be put to sleep. The case has spawned outrage and disgust among Dallas’ animal lovers, who celebrated the guilty verdict on social media.

Boley, 61, did not visibly react to either verdict, but his loved ones hung their heads when the panel found him guilty.

“They wanted to make him into a monster,” said his brother, Bart Boley. “The best way to describe my brother is an old hippie. … He’s a starving artist, but he’s not what he has been made out to be.”

Boley faced a sentencing range between six months and two years in prison — a reduction from the 10 years he originally faced. The sentence was reduced because the jury did not agree that he used the stove as a “deadly weapon.” Although the Dallas County district attorney’s office originally said he was eligible for probation, that was not the case.

Boley will get credit for time served, which amounts to about a year, according to one defense attorney. He will serve the remaining months for the felony conviction.

In the punishment phase of trial, jurors heard testimony about Boley’s character and criminal past.

Prosecutors introduced evidence that Boley is on probation for a drug offense and also received deferred adjudication for attempted indecency with a child in the 1980s.

But loved ones testified that he is anything but an animal abuser. They said Boley worked at a steakhouse, loved animals and art and regularly prayed for the sick.

A former co-worker said she used to ask Boley to babysit her dogs because she trusted him. “I’ve never met anybody as compassionate as Brad,” said Cynthia Rhodes. “I’ve never seen him get angry.”

Boley’s sister-in-law Roxann Boley testified that Boley suffers from depression. One of his attorneys said that he was on suicide watch before trial “because he didn’t want to be labeled a puppy killer.”

Dallas County prosecutors have sometimes struggled to secure hefty sentences for animal cruelty cases. Experts attribute that to limitations in the law and a split public opinion on how seriously to take animal abuse.

For example, the purported ringleader in the high-profile burning death of Justice the dog in 2012 was sentenced to five years in prison — half of the maximum.

The jury convicted Boley of animal cruelty for putting Buddy in a kennel on top of the stove on Feb. 17, 2014, as punishment for biting. He turned up the heat and ignored the puppy’s frantic cries for help, prosecutors said, until the dog suffered fourth-degree burns that he could not survive.

Jurors didn’t buy the defense’s argument that Buddy’s death was an accident because Boley believed the stove to be broken when he put the puppy in his cage for a time out.

Boley, who did not testify, told police the stove had been broken for about a year and a half, but he speculated that he might have “jarred” it during a cleaning to make it work.

He denied turning on the burner, suggested that it was Buddy who slipped his paw through the cage to turn up the heat and said he did not smell anything burning until a concerned neighbor came by to check on the apartment.

Assistant District Attorney Felicia Kerney, who worked the case with fellow prosecutor Becky Bailey and investigator Steve Wilson, ridiculed Boley’s story during closing arguments Friday.

“Are you telling me this man could not smell plastic and hair and flesh burning? He wants you to believe he heard nothing, he smelled nothing?”

She added: “Really? Buddy reached his paw through the cage and turned the stove on? He should have been making money off of Buddy if he was able to do that.”

Defense attorney Lisa Fox tried to discredit the prosecution’s witnesses during her closing arguments, a strategy she used throughout trial. She accused police of basing their investigation on an unreliable neighbor, who found the dog on the stove and testified through tears this week that Boley showed no emotion and didn’t want to save Buddy.

“I think he thought he was auditioning for an episode of General Hospital the way he was behaving up there,” said Fox, whose team included defense attorneys Jennifer Castillo and Sunil Sundaran.

Fox also questioned why Boley would take Buddy to a clinic if he had wanted him to die and pointed out that the vet who treated Buddy said she “had no indication to assume a malice act.”

“It’s sad when more people are concerned about the accidental death of a dog than the murder of human beings,” Fox said.

(Dallas Morning News - Dec 4, 2015)

Earlier:

• Accused dog killer, Bradley Glenn Boley, 61, weeps in court upon seeing photos of maimed puppy
• If found guilty, Dallas man, Bradley Glenn Boley, 61, accused of cooking puppy unlikely to receive max punishment
• Dallas man, Bradley Glenn Boley, 61, accused of cooking Chihuahua on stove suggests puppy turned up heat

If found guilty, Dallas man, Bradley Glenn Boley, 61, accused of cooking puppy unlikely to receive max punishment

TEXAS -- If a Dallas man on trial for cooking his puppy on a hot stove is found guilty of animal cruelty, history shows Bradley Glenn Boley is unlikely to receive the harshest punishment allowed by law.

The animal cruelty unit of the Dallas County district attorney’s office said it hasn’t secured a maximum, 10-year sentence on a case it has handled since the unit was formed in 2013.

Take these recent examples:

In 2013, the purported ringleader in the burning death of Justice the dog received five years in prison.

Justice the pit bull was purposely set afire and died

And last year, Robert Prichard, who beat his pit bull with a shovel and then drowned her in a pool, got six and half years behind bars.

 

 

Mesquite man found guilty of beating his pit bull
with shovel, drowning it in backyard pool

Despite the public outrage that often surrounds animal cruelty cases, experts say it’s difficult to secure the maximum sentence because of limitations in the law and a split public opinion about how seriously to take animal abuse.

Boley, 61, is accused of trapping Buddy, his 2 1/2-month-old Chihuahua, in a kennel on a hot stove, causing burns so severe that the puppy had to be put to sleep. Defense attorney Lisa Fox, who has yet to argue her case, has suggested during cross examination this week that her client loved the dog and did not act with malice.

The case is expected to go to a jury sometime this week.

If convicted, that same jury would decide his punishment for the third-degree felony, which has a range of two to 10 years in prison. Boley might also be eligible for probation under certain circumstances.

Zandra Anderson, a Houston trial lawyer who specializes in animal law, said she believes allegations of animal abuse elicit visceral reactions — and sometimes even death threats — because animals give unconditional love.

“With people, we’re fallible. You’re going to get hurt by the people who love you the most,” she said. “But you won’t find that in dogs.”

Though some people react more strongly to an animal cruelty case than a murder case, she said, “the sentencing has to be consistent with the crime.”

Most severe animal cruelty cases cap punishment at 10 years in prison, while lesser offenders come with a maximum sentence of two years. That’s not enough to satisfy the most avid animal lovers, she said, but it’s too harsh for some people who consider pets as property.

Dallas County prosecutors have cited this divide in public opinion as a challenge in securing hefty punishments.

“There are people who question: Is this really criminal?” said assistant district attorney Carmen White, who supervises the animal cruelty unit.

 

In one rare case, which was assigned before the animal cruelty unit was created but tried in 2013, a man did received 10 years in prison for picking a cat up by its tail and throwing it out the window during a domestic dispute with his girlfriend.

That case, which had a higher punishment range because of his criminal history, was tried by Stephanie Mitchell, who was a prosecutor at the time. She is now the judge presiding over the Boley case.

On Wednesday, prosecutor Felicia Kerney represented the state in the case against Boley. She spent much of the day questioning Boley’s neighbor Jerrod Foote, who testified that he found Buddy and helped take him to an emergency clinic on Feb. 17, 2014.

Foote said he heard crying and smelled smoke from Boley’s apartment, so he went inside and discovered Buddy trapped in the kennel on a “bright red” stove. He said Boley told him he was punishing the puppy for nipping him while playing.

Buddy, who had severe burns and plastic melted into his fur, seemed to be suffering “more than any animal I’d seen in my entire life,” Foote said.

Foote said he convinced Boley to go to a vet clinic, where surveillance tape shows Boley appearing agitated and upset.

But Foote said Boley was more concerned with medical costs than the puppy’s well-being. He said he visited with Buddy before he died because Boley didn’t want to see him.

“I went back and they had him sedated and he was laying on the table,” Foote said from the witness stand, where he cried and wiped his eyes during testimony. “I said a little prayer and gave him a kiss on the head.”

At one point, as Foote testified that Boley had cooked a meal for him on the stove top two weeks earlier, Boley became agitated.

“Liar!” he called out from the corner of the courtroom, where he sat wearing a blazer, his gray hair flopping forward into his face. He has flinched and shaken his head in disagreement throughout the trial.

The judge cleared the jurors from the courtroom to scold him.

“I cannot have you making the gestures and faces you are making to this jury,” Mitchell said. “Sit there and contain yourself.”

Testimony is scheduled to resume Thursday.

(Dallas Morning News - Dec 2, 2015)

Earlier:

• Accused dog killer, Bradley Glenn Boley, 61, weeps in court upon seeing photos of maimed puppy

Accused dog killer, Bradley Glenn Boley, 61, weeps in court upon seeing photos of maimed puppy

TEXAS -- Buddy the dog had white fur and round, dark eyes.

He had tiny paws and ears too big for his body.

And, authorities say, he had the misfortune to belong to a vindictive owner, who they say trapped him on top of a stove and cranked up the heat.

Police say Bradley Glenn Boley wanted to punish his 2-and-a-half-month-old Chihuahua for biting him on the wrist in February 2014, so he put the puppy in a kennel and then placed the kennel on a hot stove.

Prosecutors now seek to send Boley, 61, to prison on a charge of animal cruelty after the puppy suffered third-degree burns and had to be put to sleep.

If found guilty of using a deadly weapon to hurt his dog, he faces up to 10 years behind bars.

On the opening day of trial Tuesday, prosecutors read the charge against Boley and he stood and addressed the court in a clear, soft-spoken voice: “I’m not guilty, your honor.”

But prosecutor Felicia Kerney told jurors they would think differently after hearing about the way Buddy yelped and squealed in pain on Feb. 17, 2014.

“We’ve all heard the phrase that a dog is a man’s best friend,” she told jurors during her opening statement. “I’m certain Buddy was wondering, ‘What in the world could I have done to be placed in a situation like this?’”

Veterinarian Ashley Welch testified Tuesday that Buddy was in “critical condition” when Boley and his neighbor brought him in to the clinic where she worked.

She said Buddy was burned, in shock and had melted plastic stuck to his body. He let out shrill cries and smelled so strongly of burnt hair and plastic that the odor could be smelled throughout the clinic, she said.

“Just trying to touch him or manipulate him in any way was painful for him,” she testified.

Kerney presented photos of Buddy’s maimed body for the jury to see. The little dog had black plastic melted to his legs, noses, ears and face. In other parts, his white fur had been burnt and tinged brown.

At this point, Boley, who had been chatting with court staff earlier in the afternoon and had shook his head when Kerney outlined the accusations against him, averted his eyes.

He blinked and looked down. His shoulders began to shake. His attorney gave him a tissue, which he used to wipe his eyes as she rubbed his back.

He would not look up again until the photos of the mutilated puppy were out of sight.

Defense attorney Lisa Fox, who chose not to make an opening statement Tuesday, argued during cross examination that her client cared deeply for Buddy.

She pointed to the vet’s testimony that the team decided to put Buddy to sleep because Boley said he did not want him to suffer, though the police report says Boley appeared apathetic when asked how he wanted the vet to euthanize the puppy.

“I don’t care,” he said without emotion, according to police. “I haven’t had him very long anyway.”

But Fox emphasized the vet’s own medical record, which says she “had no indication to assume a malice act because owner was distraught, had brought patient in for treatment and vocalized several times that he did not want the puppy to suffer in any way.”

People who abuse their children will take them to the hospital - even children who are unresponsive and dying. It doesn't mean they weren't guilty of having beaten, burned, tortured that child.

Testimony continues Wednesday in state District Judge Stephanie Mitchell’s courtroom.

(Dallas Morning News - Dec 1, 2015)