Moose's Law, currently A308, prohibits persons convicted of criminal animal cruelty offenses from owning domestic companion animals and from working or volunteering at animal related enterprises, continues to suffer flaws that must be corrected to avoid constitutional violations and unintended consequences.
The amendments to this bill attempt to limit its provisions to conduct constituting criminal violations of New Jersey's animal cruelty statutes, but actually fails to do so.
While new section 2 applies only to individuals who is convicted of an animal cruelty offense (an improvement over former versions, but still not appropriate), Section 3 of P.L.1983, c.525 (C.4:19-15.16a) is amended to 39 read as follows:
(1) The commissioner shall establish a list of all persons : (a) for whom a certificate , issued pursuant to subsection b. of this section, has been revoked, or (b) who have been convicted of, or found civilly liable for, a violation of any provision of chapter 22 of Title 4 of the Revised Statutes. The commissioner shall provide each municipality in the State with a copy of this list within 30 days after the list is established and not less often than annually thereafter if no revised list required pursuant to paragraph (2) of this subsection has been issued in the interim. The commissioner shall also post the list, together with a statement identifying the list's proper use and purpose, at a publicly accessible and readily identifiable location on the Department of Health's Internet website. (emphasis added).
Therefore, anyone found civilly liable pursuant to a provision of the animal cruelty statute will be included on this list and the long-term negative impact to those individuals listed will continue.
Animal cruelty registries can serve the public and the animals they intend to protect if limited to the inclusion of certain criminal offenders of the animal cruelty statutes, so long and the terms of inclusion on such lists are sufficiently limited and can be corrected for those found to be improperly convicted.
A308 does not include such provisions.
Additionally, A308's pre-employment requirements effectively preclude the ability of pre-veterinary students and others interested in animal-related careers to obtain employment (voluntary or otherwise) at veterinary hospitals, zoos, aquaria, and other animal-related industries who have historically employed such students.
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