Jury Convicts Man Who Hurled Dog Into Traffic

If every dog must have its day, Tuesday was Leo’s.

Sixteen months after the bichon frise was thrown into traffic in a road rage incident that sparked global outrage, Andrew Burnett, 27, was convicted of felony animal cruelty in Leo’s death.

“Leo finally had his day in court,” said Sara McBurnett, Leo’s grieving owner. “One cruel person has been held accountable.”

Leo’s death had all the ingredients of a movie of the week. In a car-centric culture, it provided a new twist on the creaky crime of road rage. In an increasingly pet-loving world, it gave animal guardians a new urban horror: An innocent pet used for revenge.

So it was only logical that the small courtroom was mostly full Tuesday morning when the verdict was returned. Mostly full, that is, of reporters.

Dressed all in black and gripping a friend’s arm, McBurnett nodded sharply in satisfaction when the court clerk read the verdict. “Relief” was the first emotion she felt, “satisfaction,” the second.

“It was a short case, but it was an important case,” Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kevin J. Murphy said as he thanked the jury. In fact, the only thing shorter than the trial was the jury’s deliberations. The panel spent 40 minutes weighing the former Pacific Bell repairman’s fate.

Burnett faces up to three years in prison for the crime. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 13.

Leo was killed in traffic near San Jose International Airport on Feb. 11, 2000, after Burnett cut off McBurnett and she bumped into his sport utility vehicle. Witnesses testified that an angry Burnett stormed to the real estate agent’s car door, grabbed Leo and tossed him onto the busy roadway.

Burnett was not indicted in the case until more than a year had passed. His defense attorney, Marc Garcia, said when the trial began that Burnett grabbed Leo after the small dog bit him.

Dog lovers and others who sympathized with McBurnett’s horror and loss raised $120,000 to help find Leo’s killer; such generosity does not always extend quite so far for humans.

The level of the violation is what Ed Sayres, who heads the largest regional SPCA in the country, believes galvanized sympathizers around the world: Who wouldn’t be horrified by the tale of a slender woman cradling her beloved dog only to have it grabbed from the safety of her car by an angry stranger and thrown to its death?

“Why would you lash out against a defenseless creature?” asked Sayres, president of the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “It’s just kind of off the chart.”

Yet there are some who roll their eyes at all the hoopla, at the manhunt for Leo’s killer and the Web site created to help find him. There are those who believe that Leo infected the world with a pandemic of anthropomorphism, that he was, after all, just a dog.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Troy Benson, who prosecuted Burnett, understands that position.

But he also understands the outrage over Leo and plans to push for the maximum sentence.

“Nobody’s ever done anything like this before,” Benson said after the trial. “Hopefully nobody ever will again. We want to make murder and robbery as uncommon as Leo’s killing.”

McBurnett says she has spent hours pondering how her small dog’s death became a cultural phenomenon. It all comes down to the importance of animals in peoples’ lives, she said.

“The majority of pet owners do believe their pets to be family members,” she said after Burnett’s conviction. “And we need new laws to reflect the current situation.”

Garcia said his client “accepts the verdict.” But the defense attorney said Burnett couldn’t catch a break.

“I think Andrew, from the very beginning . . . understood there was a negative sentiment in the court of public opinion, and that it could and did follow him into the jury trial,” Garcia said.

Surprising evidence that arose after the trial had begun hurt Burnett’s case. Garcia had already laid out his defense and promised that his client would testify.

But Murphy ruled late last week that if Burnett testified, the prosecution could call a witness who would say that Burnett allegedly beat a dog to death when he was stationed in Puerto Rico with the Navy in 1995. Garcia called such potential testimony meritless.

“The deck was so stacked against him from Day 1 that the only opportunity for Andrew to overcome the overwhelming public sentiment against him was to take the stand,” Garcia said. “Unfortunately, he could not do so.”

Burnett awaits sentencing--and trial in three unrelated cases--in Santa Clara County Jail. Leo’s unfortunate end has turned McBurnett into a crusader for animal rights, she said.

Not long after Leo’s death, McBurnett scattered his ashes along a Lake Tahoe beach, where she takes her new bichon, Stormy.

“That’s where I plan to spend eternity,” McBurnett said. “I’ll be cremated and join Leo in his final resting place.”