This PA Superior Court ruling of September 8 could have widespread impact on cases filed under Section 5511 (c) of the Cruelty to Animals law. The ruling itself can be found by clicking on the above case title or on the PA Superior Court website at www.superior.court.state.pa.us/op2003Sep.htm You will need Adobe Acrobat to read this file. To summarize the issue decided in this ruling the court ruled that the words, "wantonly or cruelly" apply to the entire section including the neglect portions of the sentence. This means that a prosecutor will have to prove that the defendant was in a "wanton" or "cruel" state of mind in order to prove neglect. This may not be too hard to do in very serious cases, but it could be difficult in other cases that still merit prosecution. Please read this decision and keep a copy on hand. The judges also said in a footnote that the section is ambiguous and they urged the legislature to take a look at it. We are exploring that possibility with legislators. With that in mind it would be helpful to know about cases where this language has been an issue. Please contact Anne Irwin at airwin@voicenet.com with any comments or information on this issue. . It is possible that the Lawrence County District Attorney's Office will appeal the ruling to the PA Supreme Court. We hope that they will because we believe that the language of the section is open to another interpretation, but there is no guarantee that the Supreme Court will choose to hear the case. This decision could have far reaching impact because neglect cases are the bulk of cases that we prosecute.