Animal Cruelty

Lock v. Falkenstine, 380 P.2d 278 (Okla. Cr. 1963)

This was a criminal case to prevent chicken fighting contests. The Court quoted none other than Abraham Lincoln, who said, "As long as the Almighty permitted intelligent men, created in his image and likeness, to fight in public and kill each other while the world looks on approvingly, it's not for me to deprive the chickens of the same privilege."

The statute at issue was 21 O.S. 1682, which provides:

"Every person who maliciously, or for any bet, stake, or reward, instigates or encourages any fight between animals, or instigates or encourages any animal to attack, bite, wound or worry another, is guilty of a misdemeanor."

The Court had to determine whether the statute which prohibited people from instigating fights between "animals," included "chickens," which turned upon the issue of whether a chicken is an animal. To resolve the issue, the Court reviewed the Book of Genesis in the Bible. The court also drew from a New Mexico case addressing the same issue:

"Thus we reach the conclusion that the type of cruelty to animal statute we are construing was not passed with the intention of prohibiting such sports as cock fighting. We further believe that, to so construe the statute, would open up many other activities to prosecution, though they are not within its spirit. For example, using live minnows to bait hooks.

"`These statutes are the outgrowth of modern sentiment. They spring originally from tentative efforts of the New England colonies to enforce imperfect but well recognized moral obligations. * * * Society could not long tolerate a system of laws which might drag to the criminal bar every lady who might impale a butterfly, or every man who might drown a litter of kittens.'

The court ruled that the statute was invalid.  Chickens can fight, and kittens can be drowned. 

Driving Delusions

Breunig v. American Family Ins. Co., 173 N.W.2d 619 (1970)

Philip Breunig sued for damages received when his truck was struck by an automobile driven by Erma Veith.

The evidence established that Mrs. Veith, on her way home after taking her husband to work, saw a white light on the back of a car ahead of her. She followed this light for three or four blocks. She did not remember anything else except landing in a field, lying on the side of the road.

A psychiatrist testified Mrs. Veith told him she was driving on a road when she believed that God was taking ahold of the steering wheel and was directing her car. She saw the truck coming and stepped on the gas in order to become air-borne because she knew she could fly because Batman does it. To her surprise she was not air-borne before striking the truck -- but after the impact she was flying.

Mrs. Veith's car continued west for about a mile until the road took a gradual turn to the right. At this turn her car left the road and came to rest in a cornfield. When a traffic officer came to the car, he found Mrs. Veith sitting behind the wheel looking off into space. He could not get a statement of any kind from her.
At trial, a judgment was entered against her.

Poetic Justice

Norman v. Reagan, 95 F.R.D. 476 (D. Ore. 1982)

"In this action, Kent © Norman seeks redress of grievances," said the court, noting that "The plaintiff's name apparently includes the copyright sign." The claims include "civil death," parking tickets, and a "claim" that defied characterization:

The birds today
Are singing loudly,
The day is fresh
With the sounds
Upon the wind
The crickets.
The blackbirds
The woodpeckers
Beauty in every
Spark of life
Just So their sounds
Are appreciated
Their sounds are beauty
The ants are silent
But always searching
The birds noise a song
and the fade of the automobile tires
Chirp. A shadow from
a passing monarch butterfly
Breathless in Colorado.

The court mused, "It is possible, of course, that this is not intended as a claim at all, but as a literary artifact." The court ultimately concluded the suit could be dismissed for lack of prosecution.

"All Were Infested With Ideas and Cooties."

Murrow Indian Orphans Home v. Childers, 171 P.2d 600 (Okla. 1946)

The dissenting opinion by Judge Riley chronicles the sad history of the State of Oklahoma, the country, and indeed the world, meandering through the Norman Conquest, the arraignment of Ben Johnson, Henry VII, Roger Williams, the Constitutional Convention, and ending with the day the judge's father, a Baptist from Alabama, became a passenger on the first train to enter Ft. Worth, Texas.

The opening paragraph is hard to forget (and I've tried):

It is said a new idea is painful, even to the intelligentsia, so I shall deal only with tragedies of history, also sometimes voluminous and burdensome. Union of church and state is often productive of religious strife, persecutions, and so, horrible to freedom. The reason for dealing with this aspect of history is that some say it can't happen here. The men who are Justices of the Supreme Court constitute the personnel of an instrumentality of government; they are expendable and so they may not be here if it does happen. The instrumentality and the free government, like Tennyson's brook, must go on forever. I shall not assume the role of a prophet, for I know only the brief epilogue of the state that is Oklahoma. All of this I saw and a part of it I was. At that juncture in the state's history when first the young manhood of it went forth in an effort to save, and did for a time, with the aid of others, save civilization - some of them to return covered with glory for their achievement as at the present time, but all were infested with ideas and cooties. Nevertheless these returned soldiers sought to solve in the Western state and in officialdom the unemployment problem and to build here their homes.

Seldom will a Supreme Court Justice mention "cooties." The issue was the Constitutionality of State payments to institutions for care of orphan children, and the court held that the law was valid.

This is one of those opinions that's hard to summarize; you just have to read for yourself.