PORTAGE COUNTY Dog law is illegal, court says

The case was appealed to the 11th District Court of Appeals, based in Warren.
By MICHELE C. HLADIK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
COLUMBUS -- A Portage County woman was not given the proper chance to prove her dogs weren't vicious before they were taken from her and she was charged with a crime, says the Ohio Supreme Court.
The 4-3 decision, handed down Wednesday, declared a state statute regarding vicious dogs to be unconstitutional in not allowing for an official hearing process before criminal charges were filed.
"Although the concept is flexible, at its core, procedural due process under both the Ohio and United States constitutions requires, at a minimum, an opportunity to be heard when the state seeks to infringe a protected liberty or property right," wrote Justice Francis Sweeney in the high court's majority opinion.
The issue came before the high court after Portage County resident Janice Cowan's dogs were declared vicious.
In March, Cowan's Akron attorney, Erik Jones, told the high court his client was not given a chance to prove her dogs were innocent of biting her neighbor before they were labeled vicious and she was charged with a crime.
In 2001, two of Cowan's three German Shepherds were accused of biting Cowan's neighbor.
Supreme court documents say Cowan was informed of vicious dog laws and reminded of those laws in November 2001 and in January 2002 when the deputy dog warden was called out to investigate reports the dogs were loose in the neighborhood.
The documents say Cowan was then charged with failing to confine a vicious dog, failing to restrain a dangerous dog, and failing to obtain liability insurance for a vicious dog.
Court action
A judge found her found guilty and ordered her to pay a fine, serve 365 days in jail with 360 days suspended if she surrender the dogs, and agree not to own a dog for one year. She appealed to 11th District Court of Appeals, based in Warren, and the convictions were reversed.
During oral arguments before the Supreme Court in March, Pamela Holder, a Portage County assistant prosecutor, said Cowan was given her due process and a chance to defend her dogs during the jury trial.
Justice Sweeney wrote, however, "In fact, it was not until [Cowan] was formally charged as a criminal defendant that she could conceivably challenge the viciousness designation. We find it inherently unfair that a dog owner must defy the statutory regulations and become a criminal defendant, thereby risking going to jail and losing her property, in order to challenge a dog warden's unilateral decision to classify her property."
Justices Alice Robie Resnick, Paul Pfeifer and Evelyn Lundberg Stratton agreed with Sweeney.
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer and Justices Maureen O'Connor and Terrence O'Donnell disagreed.
The chief justice wrote in his dissent that, among other things, "the majority [ruling] leaves Ohio with statutory definitions of 'dangerous dog' and 'vicious dog' -- but no requirements for confining such dogs and no requirement that an owner of a dangerous or vicious dog obtain insurance against liability for injury caused by such a dog. The majority does so despite the clear mandate of the General Assembly imposing those requirements."
He added that Cowan's due process rights were fully satisfied.