Rules, and Compassion Too

The law in Oregon imposes a mandatory death sentence on dogs that kill, injure or merely chase livestock; the Jackson County Board of Commissioners had, until Thursday, declined to make an exception for Nadas, a young malamute-collie mix who chased but did not harm a neighbor’s horse.

Closer to home, in Fullerton, hugging a classmate of either sex at Nicolas Junior High School is forbidden. Students caught in even a comforting embrace on campus are “refocused on learning,” as the principal put it.

In Iowa, a college student with no prior criminal record apparently drank too much, argued with his girlfriend and followed her to a male friend’s apartment. He broke in and punched the other fellow so hard that the victim needed stitches. Under Iowa law, said the prosecutor at the trial, those acts together constitute first-degree felony burglary and that means a mandatory 25-year sentence.

In each instance, there are circumstances that might explain the seeming harshness of authorities: The dog was reputedly a barker, and its owner had been warned before about stock-chasing in this semirural area, which takes such infractions seriously. The Fullerton anti-hugging rule relieves school administrators of having to draw the line between a friendly squeeze and something else. And the prosecutor in the Iowa case says he offered a plea bargain involving a lesser felony and a five-year sentence; it was turned down by the defense in the apparent belief that five years was still too harsh.

But as fifth-grade teachers everywhere used to say, an explanation is not an excuse. If we saw no need for mercy or common sense, justice would be so simple. But it isn’t.

Almost a year ago, two other dogs were to be killed in Bend, Ore., for chasing sheep but were released after the sheep’s owner withdrew his complaint. Nadas too will get to live, exiled for life to an animal sanctuary in Utah in an emergency reprieve cobbled together by county officials. But how many more cliff-hangers like this does Oregon want, with condemned pets in the animal-rights spotlight?

There is a happier ending in the works in Fullerton too. Administrators at Nicolas Junior High said Thursday that they’ll lighten up on the no-hugs policy, for which they were getting close to zero support.

The case in Iowa is more serious and complicated. Only an appellate court can help the distraught young man, who does not deny his guilt but pleads for a sentence more proportionate to the crime. We could picture him cleaning roadside trash for many, many weekends and paying restitution to his victim.

Meantime, the makers of the Iowa and Oregon laws ought to revisit them. As the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau put it, “Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.”