A legal strategy that DeKalb County is using to help address the backlog of dogs held in the county shelter as court evidence has led to the recent release of four dogs, a development that animal advocates say marks the first success of the effort.
In April, the DeKalb Board of Commissioners authorized the county attorney’s office to use cost-of-care petitions, a legal tool used to force people accused of mistreating their dogs to either pay the costs of their care at the county’s animal shelter, or relinquish ownership of the animals.
Of the four dogs released last month, Coco and Dolce are in foster care and Janet and Black have been adopted, said Sonali Saindane, chair of DeKalb County’s animal services advisory board.
Saindane said she is pleased with the county’s use of the cost-of-care petitions as well as motions to dispose — another legal strategy that seeks to disentangle dogs from court cases and make them eligible for adoption.
“We’re moving in the right direction,” Saindane said. “I would like to move faster. I would like to see more.”
Animal advocates see cost-of-care petitions as an important way to help relieve chronic overcrowding in DeKalb’s animal shelter, where animals who might otherwise be saved have been euthanized because there isn’t enough space.
Most “court dogs,” as they are known, end up sheltered in four-by-four-foot kennels in back rooms of the shelter, often for months or longer while the owners’ cases wind through an overloaded court system.
More than 60 dogs were being held as court evidence in such cases in DeKalb County as of Sept. 18, Saindane said. More than 35 of them have been held for more than a year.
Saindane, who for the past couple of years has attended most court cases involving dogs, noted that the county has filed cost-of-care petitions in a total of five cases this year, but that four of those petitions have not yet been heard in court.
She said judges in DeKalb have approved at least 17 motions to dispose since November 2022 and denied at least two others. The 17 approvals, according to Saindane’s records, led to the release from court custody of more than 35 dogs, five ducks, four potbellied pigs, two goats and two horses.
Some have raised equity concerns about using cost-of-care petitions, including Jack Lumpkin, the county’s deputy chief operating officer for public safety.
“The legal system has a reputation since this country was founded in using undue pressure against the underrepresented and the poor,” Lumpkin said during a Sept. 19 meeting of the animal services advisory board.
Lumpkin said he, like the animal advocates, wants to see the court dogs surrendered. But he added: “I don’t want to use the legal system against a person who is making $17 an hour and it would not have the same issue with a person making $75 an hour. And I think that is a problem in DeKalb County.”
Attorney Careton Matthews Sr.’s law firm represented the former owner of Coco, Dolce, Black and Janet. Matthews said the cost-of-care petition that the county attorney’s office filed against his client in June was “a substantial factor” in his decision to reach a plea agreement, ending the criminal case.
“Once they told him that ‘Hey, look, you’re looking down the barrel of this cost-of-care potential judgment’ — he didn’t want that, nobody does,” Matthews said of his client. “He’s not a rich man. He’s not able to handle some large, astronomical judgment.”
Matthews’ client pleaded guilty to tethering an animal and two counts each of having an animal at large and not having rabies tags, according to defense attorneys and the Office of the DeKalb County Solicitor-General.
On Jan. 20, 2022, in response to a report from a concerned citizen, DeKalb County Animal Services went to a business on Memorial Drive and discovered one dog tethered to a shed and three more “in a caged trailer without proper shelter,” according to the cost-of-care petition.
The petition, which was filed in DeKalb County State Court, asked a judge to require that the defendant pay “all anticipated costs of impoundment and care for the four animals” from the time they were impounded, in January 2022, until he surrendered ownership of the dogs or his criminal case was resolved.
The petition estimated the cost of impoundment and foster care over a 30-day period for the four dogs was $240, plus the cost of any veterinary care they received.
It was not immediately clear Tuesday whether Matthews’ client will have to pay any of these costs. Matthews said his client represented himself in the cost-of-care case, which is a civil matter separate from the criminal case.
Credit: Courtesy (Markie Campbell)
Credit: Courtesy (Markie Campbell)
Matthews said he understands that there are costs associated with caring for court dogs. But he doesn’t think that using the petitions is fair to defendants, who often would rather surrender their animals than face “large, oppressive, financial, burdensome judgment against them as a consequence.”
Meanwhile, as of Aug. 1, there were 567 total dogs in the DeKalb shelter, which was designed for 250 dogs and has as peak capacity of 475. Another 687 dogs were in foster care.
Rebecca Guinn, CEO of LifeLine Animal Project, the nonprofit that manages DeKalb’s shelter, said that lowering the number of dogs in the facility is imperative and that cost-of-care petitions, though cumbersome, are one way to help with that.
“I think it’s a good tool,” Guinn said. “It’s a state law remedy. It’s been on the books for a while. It’s one way to recoup the cost of holding these animals. If the defendants aren’t interested in complying, they can release the animals to the county.”
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