CA Animal Law re Post Seizure Hearings, in 2020

Post seizure hearings under the CA Penal Code are still not without fault. This was seen firsthand in the current federal case in Sacramento Eastern District Federal Court, where Placer County (yet again..) is being sued for errant conduct as to seizure done by the "humane society" there, which has been long known for their tactics.

The lawsuit (last we saw) had at least 70 pages, and they were suing numerous parties, including that Humane Society of the Sierra Foothills (definitely illegal conduct used..) and many other people employed by the county, and others....we already had long ago spoken to the defense attorney that was originally on the case, a criminal law specialist.

Hard to believe, but the attorney that mostly wrote much of the animal CA Penal Code law showed up in Placer County,  and told the Judge there that it's the "legislature's" fault that in post seizure hearings, one does NOT always get a hearing??

Attorney has personal knowledge of what happened in that case, and we also have the transcript of the defense attorney Wagman, admitting that PC 597.1(h) means if there "is" a search warrant, you don't have any legal right to a post seizure hearing, basically???  Anyone who knows criminal law is aware that a post seizure hearing is normally afforded in most cases unless the subject matter is illegal in and of itself (drugs, illegal items like having been stolen,etc.) as example....

This is what the pet owners' criminal law specialist attorney stated: "..Statutes are declared unconstitutional by higher courts frequently..if this statue is interpreted to deny my clients all their due process rights, it will be declared unconstitutional in a further proceeding..."

In fact, the statute as applied (which is a form of construction) in fact, makes the law as worded, illegal as it is applied to the facts of the case--of that, there is no doubt.  That doesn't mean the owners who lost everything necessarily wanted to test the statute [because they didn't in reality]...

However, we are CERTAIN that if it was tested by using this case, the statute as applied, was illegal.

We know this is true because after this case, we were involved in the case where allegedly many malamutes were seized (again, the seizure was a set up using rescues that were part of the shenanigans state wide) --- and after having spoken to the owner, we realized what had occurred. Basically, the owner was bamboozled into thinking that the "rescues" were trying to help her but in reality, the rescues just wanted all of her stock dogs. The dog owner herself, was NOT a rescue but rescues were constantly trying to obtain her dogs. The dogs were specifically bred for certain criteria, and were NOT rescue dogs.

In the end, if anyone does test the illegality of the statute as outlined, we would be happy to be involved. The author of much of this code knows it is not legal, because he even admitted that--by having   instructed attendees at his yearly seminar with SHAC, to give all of such owners involving that specific code, a HEARING. 

And how we know that, is because  animal control officers  that attended that seminar done by this same attorney, was  TOLD  to offer the hearing to the involved parties, even if the code doesn't say they GET a hearing????

**Note: to be honest, we realize that just having the hearing will not make anyone necessarily innocent, or able to get their animals back, because the impound costs are highly expensive and most owners cannot afford those costs. We are aware of at least 3 cases though, where the owners were able to get some of their animals back.