Our first guest for the second day is Animal Cruelty Unit Chief Lauren Day. Thank you so very much for being here at The Junction.

Thank you for having me.

So let's start with your background. What your studies were, what brought you here, and how your field relates to animal forensics.

Sure, so I, um, went to NC State University for undergrad. I got my Bachelor of Science in Animal Science, thought I wanted to be a veterinarian. Kind of realized at the last minute, didn't want to do that, but still kept my Bachelor's program the same. And, um, I had always wanted to get, you know, a graduate level degree. And so basically at that point, the, or the options were, you know, law school, medical school, any of those types of things. But law school was the only one that didn't have certain prerequisites that I wouldn't have to like do a victory lap in undergrad to get. So I applied to law school and ended up going to Florida State. While I was there at Florida State, um, in law school, I did a lot of mock trial, fell in love with that, and that led me to prosecution, becoming an assistant state attorney for the Ninth Circuit. That's how I started my career, that's where I've been for the last seven years. And everything was kind of able to come full circle because my passion as a prosecutor was victim crimes, sex crimes, child abuse, domestic violence. Um, those types of things, and of course crimes against animals. We had an animal cruelty unit established at the office, I asked to join it, um, I found that my background in animal science allowed me to have a different perspective on the cases because I was familiar with necropsy, I was familiar with a lot of the terms that the veterinarians used, I had worked as a vet tech so I could easily spot neglect and not have to convince somebody about that, like some of the other attorneys who maybe even never even owned an animal. Um, and so that's kind of how everything was able to come full circle. I'm able to use my degree in animal science in prosecuting the animal crimes. And then I currently prosecute all of our high profile, um, or torture cases. And then I supervise the attorneys in our unit for all of the other general felony or misdemeanor animal crimes.

So you're very well poised to manage cases related to like the link, right, between animal cruelty and interpersonal violence. Yes. That's great. And I mean, I can relate a little bit because I've always been interested in criminology, but I wanted to be a veterinarian. Yeah. So I'm kind of a little bit backwards, right? Yeah. So I decided to go through the vet school and everything else, and then once the field of veterinary forensic started growing, then I figured, hey, this is the perfect like merge for me. The perfect meld. Yeah. That I can be kind of a criminologist, but still be a veterinarian. Definitely. So that's kind of cool. So your topic today was on, uh, issuing warrants and informed consent. So I think that there's a, how do you say, a lack of understanding of people of what these terms mean. So can you discuss what is informed consent and what is a warrant?

Sure. So every person in our country has the right to be, um, free from an unreasonable search procedure. What that basically means at its very basic level is we all have this, Fourth Amendment right, that police officers can't search me, they can't search my car, my house, any of my, you know, private areas where I have my expectation of privacy unless they have a warrant, which is based on probable cause that I've committed a crime. And therefore they need to search me, which is considered like an arrest warrant as well. So search me or search my property or take my things because they have probable cause that I've committed a crime. Informed consent is an exception to the warrant requirement. So at the very base level, we all have our Fourth Amendment right. You cannot search us. You can't take our things unless you have a warrant. Or, unless I consent to that, and I have to have an informed consent where I knowingly and voluntarily say, yes, you may search me, you may search my house, my car, you may take whatever that you find in that search, and I am openly and voluntarily consenting to that. So, the, the difference in the two is that consent is just one of the many exceptions to police having to have a warrant in order to search you or take your things.

So what are the other exceptions to not needing a warrant?

So, the other exceptions are if If officers are in a place where they are lawfully allowed to be, which we say is anywhere that any other citizen is allowed to be, and they can see things in plain sight, evidence of a crime in plain sight, that's an exception. You don't need a warrant for that. So for example, if we are at a stoplight, I'm in my car, an officer is in their patrol car, I've got my windows down and I'm snorting cocaine off my steering wheel, and they can clearly see that just like an ordinary citizen would be able to see it, then, you know, they wouldn't need a warrant to stop, to stop me and, and to search my car or to take my cocaine from me, right? Um, and so plain sight is one of the exceptions. Um, another exception is what we call exigent circumstances or things that are emergencies where there's no time to get a warrant because of the emergency. A lot of times we think of, you know, fast and furious or hot pursuit of a fleeing felon if somebody's fleeing and they're a felon, you don't need a warrant to go and arrest them for that or chase them down. Um, so hot pursuit is an exception. Um, welfare checks are an exception and then imminent destruction of evidence. So if somebody is, you know, flushing, Uh, drugs down the toilet, those types of things where you're trying to prevent the destruction of evidence. There's other exceptions to the warrant requirement. There's many of them. Like, I could probably name eight or nine of them. But other ones are like kids who are in public school. They don't have the same expectation of privacy. And so you can search a backpack. Schools can search backpacks. Or they can do, you know, those metal detector searches for public safety, like border patrol or in the airport with the, with the dogs. All these other things are. Um, if you're on probation or you're a parolee, again, you're, you can have a warrantless search of your, of yourself or your property because you're on probation and you're in that special status. So there's many exceptions to the warrant requirement, consent and, and exigent circumstances. And then plain view are just the most popular ones.

And plain view is basically something that can be seen from a public area, right? So like if you're, if you're going to somebody's house and peeking over a fence, then that's not going to meet. That's not going to constitute plain view.

Correct. Correct. Yeah, an ordinary person wouldn't be able to just go up to the side of your backyard fence and put a stool up and jump over, you know, and look over and see what you got going on. That's not going to be considered plain view.

So what are the issues if somebody does a warrantless search and it's found that it was not performed properly?

So the thing that happens with that is there's It's probably going to be a motion to suppress if the person's already been formally charged. Defense, their defense attorney should file a motion to suppress that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated, we litigate that. If they were in fact violated, then a judge can and should suppress the evidence in that case by, Um, which means we are not allowed to talk about it, introduce it, you know, if it was the cocaine, the cocaine's not coming into evidence at the trial, it's going to be suppressed. If it's a confession because of something else, that's going to be suppressed, nobody can mention the confession. Which materially alters kind of the direction of the, of the state's presentation of the case. Sometimes it's dispositive, which means, you know, If you throw out all my cocaine and it's a possession of cocaine case, I'm probably going to have to drop the case now. Um, but sometimes it's not. If it's, you know, they're suppressing one thing but not another thing, the case may still be able to move forward.

What are the steps that officers should take in obtaining a warrant and what should be included in it?

First, they need to have probable cause, so they need to have a reasonable belief that a crime has, um, been committed or being committed. And that probable cause is supported by certain facts that they've observed. It can be based, um, on hearsay, so maybe anonymous tips or things that other people have informed officers. Oh yeah, I saw. You know, Lauren over there doing this on this day and time that can be in the affidavit for a warrant. Um, so any facts and any evidence that they have at that point that brings them the probable cause that the crime is being committed needs to be included in the affidavit. And it also has to be sworn to by a person who has the same authority. So a sworn officer or the statute says attorney for the government as well. So anybody who has that sworn capacity

I know that some officers, uh, think about the things to include in the warrant because there are things that we don't think about as far as above and below ground or animals that are, have not been born. Right. So, uh, what, what's the importance of having those details in there?

The more details, the better, the more details, the better. It's really important to think about all the things that are unique to animal cases. Um, and at least in our jurisdiction, our animal control officers don't have the they're not sworn so they can't write warrants so they have to rely on a deputy or an officer to write a warrant and they have to work with them to, you know, make sure that they include all of those things. Just like you said, any animals that may not be born yet, um, anything above or below ground and also things that are very particular. to the cases that a judge may not otherwise think is important, like a treadmill, right? If you're, if you're dealing with, you know, conditioning dogs, a judge may say, why do you need to take a treadmill? But we know that that's something that they do to condition the dogs for certain dog fighting operations or breeding operations. You know, a rape stand to the naked eye, it doesn't really look like anything to a person who's unfamiliar with it. And so including all of those things in those descriptions, um, in the warrant for the judge will just make it much easier, much less litigation for us on the back end. Because if they take a treadmill, a defense attorney might be like, you took a treadmill. What was the point of that? You know, but that's something that would be considered maybe paraphernalia for us. So the more the better.

A lot of people get really upset when, um, When cases of suspected animal cruelty are not prosecuted. And I think that they don't understand that just thinking that somebody did something, you know, like, Fifi that has not had water or whatever, go ahead and send them to jail. But they don't understand. So what are the, what are the factors that need to be there for you to be able to prosecute a case?

So one thing that I always say is, you know, officers operate from probable cause and we have to operate from beyond a reasonable doubt. And so even sometimes, even if there is probable cause, there's not beyond a reasonable doubt because there is reasonable doubt there to things. And we also have to charge based on all the elements. When I do my training with the officers, I find it really helpful to tell them look at the jury instructions, look at what I have to prove, so you can see I have to prove element 1, 2, 3, 4. Go get me some evidence to prove element 1, 2, 3, 4. Um, I also try to train on the common defenses so you can also try to combat that in your investigation. Like we already know this person saying I didn't have the money to take them to the vet. Go try to get some evidence to show that they did have the money. Um, or get the vet records or lack thereof. You know, get a sworn statement from a vet that says. They, they said they have an appointment here. We've never had this person ever, you know, call here and make an appointment. That appointment's not on the books. Even omissions can assist us in those cases. So the more evidence, the better, and really comparing it with the elements that we have to prove on our end is really helpful. A lot of times we get cases where, you know, it's definitely there for maybe one or two elements, but that third one is lacking. There just isn't enough evidence for that one. And we have so many cases. We don't always have the time to go back with the officers and say, Hey, I need X, Y, and Z. We also have to go against certain timelines and deadlines, which I don't think that law enforcement always keeps in mind. That we have speedy trial deadlines, we have statute of limitation deadlines, and the minute somebody's arrested, that clock is ticking, which also puts a big strain on things and sometimes it's just like, you know, I really needed this, but my, my time is up and now I can't file it. It's not to say that maybe we couldn't have, but the time expired, we didn't get what we needed.

The audience for this podcast is very broad. So there are people that are just animal lovers and animal advocates. And I know that people will, it's so emotionally charged that people see an animal behind a fence and they don't see food or they don't see shelter. And they're like, I'm going to jump over and take that animal. So what would you say to these individuals?

I would say, I understand where you're coming from, even as a prosecutor and this, you know, type of, of crime. I see those things too, you know, and I see things on Facebook. I see things in my own neighborhood and I so desperately want to get on my computer and charge that person with a crime, but I can't. All right. There are rules in place because even if you try to be a good Samaritan and you try to go do the right thing, you're not It could still backfire. We could totally lose a case because of your interference. The best thing to do is just follow the protocols. As flawed as they may be, they're there for a reason to try to streamline everything and keep everything consistent so we don't lose cases and people don't get animals returned to them who shouldn't have animals. Call animal control. Call the police. Do what, do, you know, do things the right way so that we can kind of protect the system and protect the evidence the best way we know how.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for talking to us and sharing your information and thank you for everything that you're doing for the animals.

Thank you so much. This is fun.