Dear Chairman and Honorable Members of The House Judiciary Committee,

My name is Jed Mignano and I have been a law enforcement professional in Ohio for over
twenty-two years. I have been employed as a humane agent for eighteen of those years and I am
urging the Judiciary Committee to oppose House Bill 198. As a humane law enforcement
professional not only have I experienced first hand the effectiveness of utilizing a special
prosecutor for animal cruelty cases but I have also experienced, perhaps all too often, the
challenges associated with gaining meaningful convictions through court prosecutors. While this
is not meant in anyway to impugn the fine work that court prosecutors perform, the fact remains
that animal cruelty cases require a great deal of time and expertise and are frequently dismissed
as "lesser included offenses" or are not prosecuted at all due to enormous prosecutor case loads,
local politics, and general lack of awareness by the courts of the intricacies associated with
animal law.
I urge the Judiciary Committee to oppose this bill on the grounds that it not only lacks merit and
content, but it is a serious issue that is being fast tracked through the legislative process at a time
when proposed animal legislation deserves more scrutiny, rather than a simple knee jerk reaction.
Proponents claim that special prosecutors are obsolete because of an eighty year old law passed
at a time when animal cases were considered nothing more than mere nuisances. However,
proponents have not provided any proof to the Judiciary Committee to support such a claim and I
am certain that further scrutiny by the Committee would undoubtedly reveal that this proposition
is nothing more than a "straw man" argument at best. I feel that it is necessary to point out that
just because a law is eighty years old does not necessarily make it obsolete, as some proponents
would have the Judiciary Committee believe. The ability for humane societies to utilize special
prosecutors was added by the Ohio Legislature during a time when Ohio was experiencing an
enormous increase in urbanization as well as an increase in awareness of womens' rights and
child labor issues. The 19th amendment, which finally gave women the right to vote, could
hardly be considered "obsolete" simply because it is over eighty years old.
While proponents of HB198 are quick to point out that it is no longer necessary for humane
societies to appoint special prosecutors for child abuse cases they fail to mention that humane
societies have not prosecuted those cases for many years, so, in reality, there really is not much
of a point to be taken other than to perhaps delete some redundant wording. In 1988, the Ohio
Legislature still believed that the law was progressive enough to revise O.R.C. 2931.18 to
authorized humane societies to also employ assistant special prosecutors at a time when social
services agencies were becoming better funded and were already assuming much of the
responsibility for prosecuting cases involving children and the elderly themselves. I feel that it is
also important to mention that this transition was part of a process, not an event, as proponents of
HB198 are proposing.
As an experienced animal law enforcement professional I am urging the Judiciary Committee to
oppose, or at least delay voting on this bill, as it could be an event that could have serious long
term consequences for Ohio humane societies and their ability to successfully prosecute animal
cruelty cases.
Respectfully,
Jed Mignano
Humane investigator