Professor Justin F. Marceau
83 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 943
Legal fields as divergent as family law, torts, contracts, and trusts have
each, to varying degrees, addressed the unique legal status of pets. The rights
and obligations of pet owners are a topic of increasing legal interest. Even the
criminal law has grappled with the uniqueness of animals, to a limited extent,
by criminalizing animal abuse. Legal developments such as these tend to
counter the anachronistic view that animals are merely property. However,
substantial pockets of the law have not yet grappled with the unique status of
animals as something more than property but, perhaps, less than human.
This Article is the first to analyze the operation of the criminal defenses—
the doctrines of exculpation—for persons who use serious, or even lethal,
force in defense of their pets. By exploring the intersection of criminal defenses
and the status of animals, the ambiguities in our common law doctrines
of exculpation and the status of animals in America become apparent. The
Article is less an argument for greater animal rights (or increased violence)
and more a call to understand how the law’s current treatment of pets and pet
owners is discordant with our social values and in need of reassessment.
