Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Cockfighting bill approved 7-5 in Senate committee
Senate Bill 1190 would increase the penalties for staging, and also attending, any kind of animal fight.
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RICHMOND -- When Mecklenburg County authorities raided a cockfight earlier this month, they found 140 fighting birds, boxes of knives and razor-sharp spurs, seven suspected gang members, 22 illegal immigrants and an average of nearly $1,000 in cash on each spectator.
But most of the 122 people charged walked away with only a ticket, and the person who sponsored the cockfight couldn't be charged with anything more than a misdemeanor.
Sen. Roscoe Reynolds, D-Henry County, wants to change that. He's sponsoring Senate Bill 1190, which was approved Monday on a 7-5 vote by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources.
The bill would make it a Class 6 felony to engage in the fighting of cocks or any other animals. Currently it's a Class 3 misdemeanor.
SB 1190 also increases the penalty for attending an animal fight from a Class 1 misdemeanor to a Class 3 misdemeanor, effectively increasing punishment from a maximum $500 fine to a potential $2,500 fine and up to 12 months in jail.
The legislation now heads for the full Senate, where it will be taken up for consideration later this week.
Maryland made cockfighting a felony in 2004 and North Carolina did so in late 2005.
"As a result of this, evidence has begun to accumulate there has been significant transfer of fighting venues from North Carolina to Virginia," Reynolds said.
The Mecklenburg County raid seems to support this. According to Mecklenburg County Commonwealth's Attorney Nora Miller, about three-quarters of those charged were from out of state, with the vast majority from North Carolina.
"If you're in rural Southside Virginia, you can expect to see this type of activity on the rise," said Mecklenburg County Sheriff Danny Fox.
Cockfighting has been practiced for thousands of years and was popular in ancient Greece and Rome. It flourished in some rural parts of the United States and is still legal in Louisiana and New Mexico, though both have seen recent efforts to ban the practice.
But it's been long opposed by animal welfare groups. In 1836, Massachusetts became the first state to ban cockfighting.
Others have followed suit. In 1998, 17 states punished cockfighting as a felony. That number has since grown to 33, said John Goodwin, deputy manager of animal fighting issues for the Humane Society of the United States.
He estimates that between 20,000 and 30,000 people in the country still participate in cockfighting.
Goodwin said it's important that Virginia make cockfighting a felony to offset the potential gain its participants stand to make from gambling.
"They can win $10,000 or $15,000 at these derbies," Goodwin said. "When you can win that much money, a misdemeanor fine is just seen as the cost of doing business."
At the Mecklenburg County raid, more than $40,000 was seized from people just fighting cocks that day, Miller said. That doesn't count the money carried by spectators.
"There was a tremendous amount of money changing hands," Miller said.
Kathy Strouse, legislative liaison for the Virginia Animal Control Committee, said that illegal gambling is only one of the crimes to be found at cockfights.
"I have never read of a cockfighting arrest that did not involve a host of collateral crimes: gambling, drugs, alcohol, firearms, child endangerment, assaults, up to and including homicides," Strouse said.
Currently, cockfighting in Virginia is only illegal if money is involved. If there's no admission fee, no prize and no gambling, there's no crime.
Reynolds' bill had initially changed that to make cockfighting illegal under any conditions, but committee members argued against that.
Sen. John Watkins, R-Chesterfield County, said he felt the exemption was necessary to prevent prosecution for more innocent situations.
"As a young person, a juvenile, every now and then I would throw two anxious roosters in the same vicinity, particularly when there was a bunch of hens around, just to see what would happen," Watkins said. "Nine times out of 10 they would fight for a little while. Would I not be at that point in commission of a felony?"
SB 1190 was then amended to retain the money-related loophole.
