Animals, Bizarre, Criminal law, Society, Torts

Texas Woman Shoots Husband To Protect Cat

Audrey Deen Miller has proffered a unique defense to charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon: she shot her husband to protect her cat. The police report that Miller’s husband threatened to shoot one of her cats with a pellet gun. She did him one better and shot him in the abdomen with a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun.

Source: KHOU

Miller has several cats and dogs . . . and one apparently non-cat loving husband. Assistant Chief Mark Herman expects her account that “[t]he husband was trying to do something to the cat and the wife was just trying to protect her cat.”

It does raise an interesting issue in the treatment of pets. If this were a human, there would be a viable claim of defense of others. Yet, animals are treated in the law as forms of chattel or property and the common law has long held that you cannot kill or maim in defense of property (in both torts and criminal law). Should this change to allow a defense for someone uses potentially lethal force to prevent the killing or maiming of an animal?

When the husband came home (still in a hospital gown), he found that he was locked out. It was not clear if that was the work of his wife or the cats.

40 thoughts on “Texas Woman Shoots Husband To Protect Cat”

  1. @Rick, and now there’s clear evidence that you shouldn’t assume that cat owners are p*ssies. 🙂

  2. Texas was also the first state to award damages beyond the replacement value of a pet if killed. That case is setting precidents accross the country. Maybe this case will have some legs.

  6. Everyone needs a handgun, especially in TX where you can shoot your “friend” in the face and not get charged.

  7. I believe that in the state of Texas it is legal to shoot someone in defense of property (see the Horn case and others—Horn was acquitted for killing over the theft of a neighbor’s t.v.).

  8. No wonder some areas of Texas are refusing to teach evolution in their school system, ….. It’s rather obvious to me that evolution has not happened in some areas of Texas.

  9. GeneH,

    There is hope. We have Obama. And Ellsberg has come out for the Dems. How many votes does he swing?

    What’ju got against sagebrush and nothing else?

  10. Smom,

    I truly hope that as goes Austin, so goes the rest of Texas, but I’ve been to many other parts of Texas. It is a slim hope at best. Especially out in the wilds of West Texas.

  12. Not really. There is always the aspiration of hope, but there is not always the reality of hope fulfilled. As evidence of this proposition, I submit the current Presidential electoral process since the dismantling of FECA and the ascension of Citizens United.

  14. Now folks, how many of you have a pet cat? How many have a pet dog? How many have a pet boyfriend or girlfriend? Ms. Jones in the front row, does your cat live in the home or is it an outside cat? Does she require you to pet her every morning when you get up? If a burglar were to invade the home would you defend your cat? Can I see a show of hands of those who agree with Ms. Jones?
    All jurors raise their hands.

    Your honor, the entire panel is acceptable to me.

  15. I predict she will walk. See, self-defense by a battered woman doesn’t fly in Texas, Florida, Virginia, and like that. But cats? EVERYONE LOVES CATS. They will not conclude, “the cat must have done something to deserve it.” They will not conclude, “the cat should have left him long ago.” They will not conclude, “the cat makes false allegations,” or any of that. The woman will be sainted. Damn, it almost makes me wish I was a cat person.

  18. ” the common law has long held that you cannot kill or maim in defense of property”

    You might want to inform the police of this.

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