March 12, 2009

Legislation would tighten penalties on cockfighting

By Markeshia Ricks

A public hearing on a bill that would crack down on illegal cockfighting drew a crowd of op­ponents and proponents, but failed to attract the very legisla­tors who will actually decide whether it makes it out of committee.

The committee of 15 failed to produce a quorum Wednesday, which ensured that it would not be voted on, as the bill's sponsor, state Rep. Cam Ward, R-Alabas­ter, had apparently requested.

Ward joked at the start of the hearing that he was sorry that his bill ran all the committee members away.

He said his bill is not intended to hurt the poultry industry or create a new crime under the law -- cockfighting is already il­legal in Alabama.

He said what the bill is in­tended to do is put some teeth in the existing law so that it would be worth the cost of enforcing it.

"This bill does not prevent you from owning, raising or selling a game fowl," he said. "It prevents you from selling gamefowl for the purpose of cockfighting."

Under existing law, the penal­ty for cockfighting is between $25 and $50, but Ward's bill would raise the penalty to $10,000.

Opposed to what they believe would be a significant burden for them, gamefowl breeders believe that the bill could have an adverse impact on their in­dustry.

Breeder Larry Woods, of Shel­by County, said the bill would run gamefowl breeders away from Alabama and further erode farming in the state.

"You better watch what you're doing," Woods told the handful of committee members who put in an appearance Wednesday. "You're messing with the liveli­hood of good, decent people."

D'Renda Lewis of the Alabama Gamefowl Breeders Association said if the goal is to stop extra­neous illegal activities such as gambling, prostitution and nar­cotics trafficking, Ward's bill won't stop it.

Lewis said Ward's bill would do nothing more than drive peo­ple further underground.

"You'll never legislate cock­fighting out of existence," she said. "You'd do much better to try to control it."

Paul Jones, district attorney for the Fifth Judicial Circuit, said Wednesday the Alabama Legislature needs to either strengthen the law or take it off the books. He said he didn't have a preference either way, but be­lieves something needs to be done.

Earlier this month, the cir­cuit's drug task force raided a cockfighting establishment in Randolph County where 148 peo­ple were arrested. Of those ar­rested, Jones said 105 were from Georgia where cockfighting is a felony offense.

"We discovered that this place had been in business for years, fighting chickens twice a week," he said. "Saturday was Cauca­sian night and Sunday was His­panic night."

Jones said the majority of peo­ple were arrested on charges other than cockfighting because the other crimes carried stiffer penalties.

"They wanted to be charged with cockfighting because they knew that the maximum charge would be $50," he said.

Alabama, according to The Humane Society of the United States, has one of the weakest cockfighting laws on the books, and lawbreakers from other states, particularly Georgia, routinely cross state lines for cockfights here.

State Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said he preferred not to specu­late on why so many committee members were absent, but ad­mitted that sometimes contro­versial bills can hurt attend­ance.

"I think it could be back in a couple of days," he said of the bill. "I think there is some room for compromise."

John Goodwin, manager of an­imal fighting issues for The Hu­mane Society of the United States, said much of the opposi­tion to the bill is coming from people who don't live in Alabama.

"Cockfighting is a felony in Georgia, and now you have all of these criminals from Georgia coming to Alabama," he said. "They are finding a refuge here in Alabama in which they can commit their crimes."

Goodwin said he believes that legislators were deliberate no-shows at Wednesday's meeting.

"Committee members that were afraid to show up for this meeting need to go into a profes­sion that requires zero backbone at all," he said. "They need to stop bowing down to a bunch of criminals who don't want their favored crime punished."