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Woman Arrested for Not Renewing $35 Dog License
Being a busy mom and surgical nurse, Becky Rehr of Kalamazoo County, Mich., kept forgetting to renew the license for her family’s 11-year-old springer/border collie mix. She finally turned in the paperwork on June 18 but a few days later received an arrest warrant from the local government. Not renewing a dog license is a criminal offense in this corner of southwestern Michigan.
While running errands with her 14-year-old daughter, Rehr swung by the sheriff’s office to show Johnny Law her $35 receipt and clear up the trivial matter. She was shocked when they took her mug shot, fingerprints, and tossed her into a holding cell at the county jail.
“They frisked me and put me in this intake cell with all these inmates in orange jumpsuits,” Rehr said. “I was pretty nervous.” It took three hours before CSI: Kalamazoo released her on a $100 bond so she could return to her daughter who had been waiting in the family car.
Her co-workers at Bronson Methodist Hospital “think I’m kidding,” said Rehr, who is a surgical nurse. “They think there’s no way this is how we’re spending our tax dollars.”
Criminal charges for not renewing a dog license are allowed under the Kalamazoo County animal control ordinance.
Steve Lawrence, director of Kalamazoo County Animal Control, said the agency seeks arrest warrants about “four or five times a month” for people who haven’t renewed a dog license. The county has 32,000 licensed dogs.
“We’re not looking to punish people,” Lawrence said. “We’re just looking for people to get their dog license.”
“Government” is just another word for the dog owners we arrest together.
Today, Rehr was hauled before a district court judge for her slow renewal of the dog license, a crime punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $100 fine. Beforehand, she had called several lawyers for advice; some said she should hire an attorney to fight the case while others counseled her to plead guilty and pray the court cleared her record sometime in the future. Her only previous legal violation was a speeding ticket.
After her story was published in the Kalamazoo Gazette — and later picked up nationally by the Associated Press — the County Prosecutor’s Office filed a motion to dismiss the case and the judge agreed. Publicizing the petty excesses of local bureaucrats embarrassed the County enough to do the right thing.
Rehr shared the good news via an email to the local newspaper. “No court and total dismissal!!!!!” she said. “I don’t have to go to court and I get my bond money back. I’m free!!!!”
No word yet if Kalamazoo County will revisit their ridiculous criminal code or fire their power-mad personnel.
Published in Law
True enough. It just strikes me that denying someone’s freedom (by requiring the police to put them in cuffs) and jail time for failure to pay a $35 license for a trivial matter is inherently excessive.
It doesn’t sound like they were looking for her – she walked in to the station.
Perhaps a correlation has been discovered (or surmised) in that county between more serious offenses and unlicensed dog ownership. Perhaps the effects of improper dog ownership are a particular problem there. Perhaps someone thought that better enforcement of the minor stuff will produce an overall image of law and order that might prevent the larger stuff from occurring. Perhaps someone had the idea that better enforcement of the smaller stuff might contribute to finding the larger thugs. Perhaps there is no good reason for this law to be structured the way it is. Perhaps this was some sociopath bureaucrat just burning to exercise their power to have someone arrested (though, it doesn’t sound like an arrest warrant was the first, second, or even third response).
That wasn’t the first response. Sounds like there were about five levels of response before it got to that. What are the alternatives, though, to keep “avoidance” from becoming a successful technique?
The story could probably be rewritten in a way to make it seem like a reasonable thing to do.
Indeed. But doing so would harm the narrative.
Not sure what the issue is. In the end all government has is force. The force to restrain, the force to harm, the force to take. We all know this even if some of us do not like to admit it.
What the government did was well within its purview. If you have a dog you must pay a “fee” or be harmed. It is just that simple.
Premature? Getting thrown in jail for late purchase of a dog license seem pretty police state-ish to me.
By and large, citizens don’t pass laws. (Yes, referendum and initiative are exceptions.) Even if they did, I would have little faith in their rationality. Citizens voted in Barack Obama. Twice.
Yes, premature. There’s much we don’t know.
Also I would guess this isn’t a law as much as it is an “ordinance”. Ordinances probably aren’t voted on.
If I lived in the Police State of Greater Kalamazoo and had been warned repeatedly that failure to renew my darling Farfel’s license in a timely manner could result in my arrest, I’d probably remember to renew the license. At least after the first warning or so. But that’s just me.
As an oft forgetful person I have more sympathy for this young lady
There’s nothing like the threat of arrest, though, to concentrate the attention and sharpen the memory.
I understand that you ultimately need the threat of force behind any law in order for people to take it seriously. Nevertheless, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of people sitting in jail for 90 days for failing to pay for a $35 dog license, or simply being late in the payment. So I’m going to stick with the idea that it’s an inherently unjust law regardless of numbers of warnings or any other factors being glossed over. Unless of course we aren’t being told about some other law she broke that actually warrants jail time.
Seems a perfect illustration of “anarcho-tyranny”, a term coined by the late Samuel Francis. It describes the brave new world where the government repudiates and abandons the rule of law and its role to preserve liberty and civil peace (e.g., policies advance flooding the nation with illegals, and permit dozens of murders a week in inner cities while bleating about gun control), in favor of turning its ever greater power to regulating and punishing the innocent for minutiae (e.g., jailing a citizen for a late dog license renewal, instituting mandatory composting and creating garbage police with power to fine ‘violators’, etc.).
I am actually surprised they let her go. Usually you crucify such a person very publicly in order to make the point that the government is to be taken seriously and anybody not connected to it that would thwart the law will be held accountable.
I recommend that we all jump to conclusions first and get more information later.
According to a follow-up article, Rehr had twice been mailed warnings by Animal Control that she needed to renew the license. These two warnings were followed by a telephone call from Animal Control notifying her that she needed to renew the license. These three warnings were followed by a home visit from Animal Control notifying her that she needed to renew the license. It was only after all four of these warnings had been ignored that an arrest warrant was requested and issued. Now that’s forgetful.
most likely they went to the wrong address.
Quite possible. Except that she admitted receiving them.
You have to wonder about a county spending that much in an attempt to get someone to renew their license. I say start doubling the fines then send her to collections.
You forgot the end to your alternative suggestion: double the fines then send her to collections and then write off the whole matter altogether when she still never renews.
If there’s no good reason for the law then perhaps this is an honorable least-inefficient strategy for a conscientious bureaucrat. However, if there is a good reason for the law then we actually do care whether or not she renews.
You also have to wonder about a citizen willing to impose these costs on her fellow taxpayers rather than just renewing her dog license when due.
It is estimated that there are 11 million unlicensed dogs in the US today. It would be impossible to arrest all of their owners. Therefore I suggest comprehensive dog licensing legislation that would create a path to licensing.
Deport them to China!
You must enjoy the Fawlty Towers episode “Basil the Rat,” in which the health inspector discovers numerous violations of the health and safety code, including failing to fulfill past promises of compliance. The part where Basil is arrested, frisked, handcuffed and jailed is hilarious.
No, no, not that! Anything but comprehensive. Anything!
It was Manuel’s damn rat!
There is, or should be, discretion in such matters. But as a society we are moving in the direction of a shoulder-shrugging, “my-hands-are-tied” attitude, abdicating our God-given judgment and intelligence.
This leads to such things as a person being arrested and jailed for failure to renew a dog license in a timely manner, and a Vermont small-town police constable canceling an Independence Day parade because the county hadn’t put up the proper detour signs with the federally-mandated size, color, shape, etc. (The latter case was recently described by Mark Steyn.)
It would make a lot more sense for Kalamazoo to confiscate the owner’s dog and put it into the local pound as the ultimate enforcement measure in a case of non-renewal of a dog license (with release contingent on payment of the license fee). To arrest someone AFTER SHE HAD PAID THE FEE makes no sense whatsoever, in this or any other world.
Send the dog to the pound? The dog-loving public would riot.