Haney bill gives shelter animals a new chance at life

For most animal lovers, their dogs, cats or other four-legged critters are viewed as nothing less than valued members of the family. But in cases where animals instead suffer abuse bad enough to be forcibly removed from the home, they also become evidence that can keep them legally isolated and unavailable for adoption for months or even years.

Thanks to a bill recently signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, that won’t be the case for much longer.

AB 2344, authored by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) and co-sponsored by Social Compassion in Legislation and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, will allow animal shelters to hold an administrative hearing to place a legally seized animal up for adoption 14 days after a notice of availability if the owner fails to claim and pay for the care and treatment of the animal.

“There have been many animals who have been victims of cruelty who have sat much longer in a cage than they should have,” Haney said. “This bill will create more clarity on the legal tools that counties can rely on to get these vulnerable animals who have been harmed into a home where they can be safe and live permanently.”

Under existing law, shelters can only move to place the animals for adoption if seized by a warrant or under specific circumstances under Penal Code 597.1. AB 2344 will allow shelters to follow the same guidelines to place any legally seized animal up for adoption if the owner fails to claim and pay for the care of the animal.

Judie Mancuso, founder of Social Compassion in Legislation, says the bill originally would have established an animal abuse registry in California, an issue Mancuso has pushed for before. But Haney says privacy concerns from the Assembly Committee on Public Safety led to that version of the bill being scrapped in favor of a proposal from the LA County DA’s office.

“It’s an issue in LA County with animals being there over 300 days in shelters because people take off; they can’t even find them for their court dates,” Mancuso said. “The animals are lingering, and there’s just no solution.”

Dan Felizzatto, Special Assistant District Attorney and legislative advocate for the LA County DA’s office, says animal shelters across the state are dealing with overcrowding, with “basically every single shelter” in Southern California operating at over 100% capacity.

“One factor that contributes to that overcrowding of the shelters was the fact that we have what we call evidence animals,” Felizzatto said. “In a criminal case involving animal cruelty or neglect, animals would get seized, and they’re evidence of the crime, so they’re not treated like a stray animal that comes in that can be put up for adoption.”

Felizzatto says that evidence animals are never actually brought to court in cases of animal abuse.

“You have a veterinary report that would explain in medical terms what the trauma to the animal was,” Felizzatto said. “There really wasn’t a need to keep that evidence animal.”

According to Felizzatto, the longer animals are kept in a shelter, the less likely they’ll be able to be adopted.

“All animals will eventually develop into this kennel crazy where they engage in bad behavior,” Felizzatto said. “When it happens, it makes the ability to adopt them out virtually impossible.”

The version of the bill first introduced by the LA County DA’s office would have allowed shelters to place animals up for adoption if their owner failed to show up in court. However, Mancuso says opposition to the bill pushed for the process to fall under Penal Code 597.1.

Liz Kim, policy director of Initiate Justice, one of the groups to initially oppose the bill, said they were thankful Haney took their amendments and not to rely solely on missed court dates.

“In our work, we know that it can be a number of reasons that can cause somebody to miss a court date,” Kim said. “Before that change, I think just the wide net of people who have missed court dates was just too general to where due process and procedure was a concern for us.”

Haney says there were concerns that the earlier version of the bill would conflict with processes some shelters use now to place animals up for adoption, leading to focusing the bill on Penal Code 597.1.

“That was an approach that came about at the end that everyone agreed was a better way to move quickly and not leave animals in further limbo related to court case timelines and appearances,” Haney said. “There was some concern in some of the humane societies about what this (bill) would mean, and they actually were concerned that it could leave them in a shelter for longer.”

Initiate Justice and other groups pulled their opposition on the final version of the bill.

“It’s even stronger than the previous version,” Mancuso said of the changes. “We got a great bill, everybody in support, and now it’s signed.”

According to Felizzatto, the process to declare an evidence animal abandoned and placed for adoption has rarely been challenged by an owner at an administrative hearing.

“These animals, the owners have already demonstrated that they’re committing abuse and neglect against the animal,” Felizzatto said. “These people are like, ‘Yeah, I don’t care about that dog; that’s why I was kicking him; I’m not going to pay $700 to get the dog back.’”

Felizzatto says that at $105 a day, taxpayers foot the bill for evidence animals at government-run shelters when owners abandon them. He hopes AB 2344 will reduce costs by allowing evidence animals to be placed for adoption faster.

AB 2344 will go into effect on January 1, 2027.