Press release from Niagara County District Attorney's Office
On the day before the trial in this case was set to begin, the Court issued a decision barring any witness from testifying about the cows that were the subject of the charged larceny. The Court determined that no witness could testify about seeing the cows, what happened concerning the cows, or indeed mention the cows at all.
The court based this ruling on a determination that the New York State Police should have kept the animals in police custody upon seizing them from the defendant, instead of returning them to their owner, in the event that the defendant someday in the future wanted to inspect them. Police departments do not maintain stables to house livestock, nor is there any requirement in the law that they do so. Neither is there any requirement in law that police refrain from returning stolen animals to their owner.
If this were the case of a family pet or companion animal being stolen, I think the owner and public would be quite surprised to find out that the police have to keep that animal as evidence and can’t return it to its home. Again, there is no requirement in the law that police do so.
The future inspection of the animals would not have had any bearing on this case, nor was the defense prejudiced by not being able to inspect the cows at some future date. Even if this were a legitimate issue, the remedy fashioned by the court, to bar all testimony about the cows, was not the proper one under our law. Nevertheless, that was the Court’s decision yesterday afternoon.
We obviously cannot go forward with a trial in which no witness is allowed to talk about the subject matter of the charged crimes. This case has garnered an extreme amount of attention and has been the subject of considerable misinformation and spin. The trial would have been the occasion for the simple and straightforward facts to be brought forth. Unfortunately that will now not happen.
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