In 2017, Pennsylvania took enormous strides in cracking down on animal cruelty in passing Libre’s law, which finally created felony level penalties for egregious acts of animal cruelty. After the passage of Libre’s Law, more than 6,000 animal cruelty cases have been filed in courts across the state from 2017 to 2020. While District Attorney’s offices generally handle prosecutions for criminal offenses in the county, some District Attorney’s offices may not have significant experience prosecuting felony animal abuse cases.

For this reason, I will be introducing legislation that would permit the Attorney General to investigate and institute criminal proceedings for a felony offense regarding cruelty to animals if the attorney general requests to prosecute the felony offense in a criminal court or juvenile delinquency court and the District Attorney agrees or fails to respond. This would permit the assistance of the attorney general in prosecuting large scale animal cruelty cases in counties which have little experience in doing so.

Please join me in cosponsoring this important legislation in order to further protect Pennsylvania’s animals from harm and abuse.