Thursday, September 22, 2011
Staff report
YOUNGSTOWN
A three-judge panel of the 7th District Court of Appeals has unanimously overturned a city woman’s 2010 municipal-court conviction under a state vicious-dog law the Ohio Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in 2004.
The appeals court overturned the conviction of Cheryl Mallis, 51, of Euclid Boulevard. The one-year probation sentence Mallis received from Judge Elizabeth Kobly of Youngstown Municipal Court had been stayed pending appeal.
A 28-year-old man was walking his dog on a retractable leash on the sidewalk past Mallis’ residence, when his dog stepped into Mallis’ yard and was attacked by her two dogs on July 5, 2009, police said. The man suffered a minor leg injury, and his dog needed veterinary attention.
The state law was unconstitutional because it didn’t allow a dog owner a meaningful opportunity to challenge the designation of his or her dogs as vicious; and Judge Kobly should have granted Mallis’ motion to dismiss the charge, the appellate court ruled.
In a 2009 decision, the state’s top court upheld a Youngstown ordinance that requires all dog owners to keep their dogs securely confined both on and off the owner’s property. Mallis wasn’t charged under that ordinance.
Mallis’ front yard did not have a physical fence, but it had an invisible, underground electric fence, which her dogs crossed during the confrontation, the appellate court said.