Justin and Joshua Moulder in court on
Friday afternoon, Jan. 26, 2007.
Puppy Abuse Suspects Plead Guilty
Two teenaged brothers abruptly changed their pleas to guilty, Friday, to charges of torturing and killing a puppy in a hot oven last August at the Atlanta apartment complex where they lived. But they still insist they are innocent.
Nineteen-year-old Justin Moulder and his 17-year-old brother, Joshua, decided to plead guilty to animal cruelty and all other felony charges not because, their attorneys said, they are guilty, but because they believe the prosecution's evidence against them probably would have convinced the jury to convict them at their upcoming re-trial.
"That's a concession," said Timothy Owens, Justin's attorney, "that there is a basis upon which a jury could find him guilty, although he's not admitted guilt to those particular counts.... He maintains that he did not put the puppy in the oven, he was just as horrified as the other kids were supposed to have been,... when he got to the community center, the puppy was [already] in the oven."
Kevin Schumaker, Joshua's attorney, said Joshua also pleaded guilty "not to admit guilt to the crimes as has been alleged, but to say, 'I understand that if I were to go to trial, there is a possibility I would be convicted, and I believe it's in my best interests, at this time, to go ahead and enter a guilty plea'" to each count.
The Moulders' re-trial was scheduled to begin on Monday in Fulton County Superior Court. Their first trial in December ended in a mistrial because one juror out of twelve refused to convict them.
On Friday, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said he did not offer the brothers any deal in exchange for their abrupt guilty pleas. Howard said each teen faces a maximum prison term of 90 years on all nine felony counts. Howard would not say how long of a prison sentence he will recommend to the judge at the sentencing hearing Feb. 9.
"We are particularly elated," Howard told reporters after the plea hearing Friday, "for all of the citizens and animal lovers who have been in contact with us about this case."
The brothers stood side-by-side in front of the judge at their plea hearing Friday, looking down and responding to the judge's questions in one-word sentences, then each saying, clearly, "guilty," as the prosecutor read each of the nine counts against each of them:
- One count, each, of aggravated cruelty to animals (1-to-5 years)
- One count, each, of burglary (1-to-20 years)
- One count, each, of criminal damage to property in the 2nd degree (1-to-5 years)
- Three counts, each, of making terroristic threats (1-to-10 years, each count)
- Three counts, each, of cruelty to children in the 2nd degree (1-to-10 years, each count)
In court, the lead prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Laura Janssen, summarized, in graphic detail, the case and the evidence against the Moulder brothers.
Janssen told the judge that last August, the boys first burglarized and vandalized the community center at the apartment complex where they lived.
Then she said the boys used duct tape to bind together the front and back legs of a puppy, a female, pit bull mix.
Janssen said the teens then put the puppy into a hot oven and left her there, killing her.
The brothers then bragged about it, Janssen said, and went to the playground and told children to come and look. She said the brothers opened the oven door and showed the chidren what they had done, then threatened them if they told anyone, which is why the brothers were charged with cruelty to children and making terroristic threats.
District Attorney Howard had once offered each brother a deal of ten years in prison, which the teens rejected. Now, no offer is on the table. Howard wants them punished with a prison term, and rehabilitated, "because the evidence shows that people who are responsible for the torture of animals, that they transfer that same kind of [violent] activity" to humans.
But each teen's attorney is hoping for mercy from the judge-- probation and rehabilitation.
"There's a question of whether you take a 17 year old boy," said Schumaker, Joshua's attorney, "and do you just want to put him in a cage and throw away the key? Or what is best for society?"
Owens said, "From the time Justin was arrested, there's been talk from the state that people who commit crimes against animals then become serial killers. Well, put someone in prison for ten years. And see what happens to them, then.... Prison is not the place to rehabilitate somebody.... Hopefully [the judge] will come up with a sentence that is fair and actually does some good."
Both teens have been held in jail since their arrests in August.
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