Murder Most Fowl Excused by Jury
He admitted he cock-a-doodle did it, but the jury let him go free.
Michael T. Lloyd, 23, was acquitted of cruelty to animals last week for shooting to death a neighbor’s pet rooster that he claimed kept him awake at night with its crowing. The jury deliberated only half an hour.
“Isn’t it true, Mr. Lloyd, that on July 5, 1993, you came home from work, had a few beers and decided to waste the rooster?” prosecutor Glenn Coffey asked.
“I didn’t get no sleep because of the chickens,” Lloyd said.
He could have gotten up to two years in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Defense attorney Farley Holt argued that the animal, Henry D. Rooster, had “gone from being a pet to a pest.”
“We have a law to take care of barking dogs, but why isn’t there one to control crowing roosters or any other animal or fowl?” he asked the jury.
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