Summary

Vincent Lemark Burrell, 57, was sentenced to 475 years in prison for running a large-scale dogfighting ring in Paulding County, Georgia.

Authorities discovered 107 malnourished pit bulls, many tied to trees or heavy chains without food, water, or shelter. Some dogs had teeth forcibly removed or severe scarring from fights.

Investigators also found training equipment and dogfighting paraphernalia. Burrell was convicted on 93 counts of dogfighting and 10 counts of animal cruelty.

All rescued dogs were placed in rehabilitation centers for care and recovery.

  • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 days ago

    475 years, really? Animal cruelty is abhorrent, but… really?

    For comparison, the longest sentence for the J6 insurrection, in which a full-blown coup was attempted and police officers died, was 22 years. And then annuled.

    Justice is broken. It should be 22 years for the dogs, 475 years for the murderous coup and no pardons.

    • Sorgan71@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      so the j6 rioters should have been punished harder, this is still a reasonable ammount of time.

    • TheMachineStops@discuss.tchncs.de
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      19 hours ago

      Elijah McClain:

      Randy Roedema, an Aurora police officer at the time, was sentenced to 14 months in a county jail. Jeremy Cooper, the paramedic working with Mr. Cichuniec, was sentenced to four years of probation with 14 months of work-release.

      Strangely courts care more about dogs than humans, let us not forget about war crimes committed by soldiers and they don’t get any punishment example My Lai massacre.

      • shekau@lemmy.today
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        6 hours ago

        Strangely courts care more about dogs than humans

        That’s how it should be everywhere🥰

    • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The difference is that this guy is black.

      I’m happy animal cruelty is taken serious though.

      I just don’t understand how dumb the American justice system is. Is there a judge expecting this guy to live for this long? Why give more then a life sentence, since when are Americans Buddhists?

      • GroundedGator@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        Should you be reincarnated as anything larger than a house cat, you shall report to the bureau of prisons and surrender yourself.

        • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          That’s racist. Why should a dog report and get imprisoned while a guinea pig can go free? Guinea pigs are assholes, they should be imprisoned too. No matter previous-life convictions. I bet cops automatically reincarnate as guinea pigs. They’re called guinea “pig” for a reason.

          Although I do not agree with cops being called pigs. Pigs are intelligent and lovely creatures. Cops are racist assholes. Calling them pandas suits much better. Fuck pandas, I wish they would all die.

          Cats, ok, they should not be imprisoned, instead they imprison us without most of us knowing it. All hail our great and mighty feline overlords.

    • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      In addition, animal abuse happens constantly at like, meat and animal products factories, but that’s perfectly ok for some reason

      Idk, I find it weird how the law is selective on this kinda stuff

      • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        I think because the intention is to hurt the animal by definition and produces no useful biproduct. But that’s my guess.

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      2 days ago

      So, two points. First, it sounds like he’s expected to get a reduction on appeal:

      https://www.animals24-7.org/2025/02/02/dogfighter-gets-475-years-more-than-all-other-perps-since-vick-combined/

      Record tough sentence of Vincent Lemark Burrell is almost certain to be reduced on appeal

      Second, newspapers are often kind of loose in their description and describe a cumulative sentence in years, as it sounds more-exciting, when it consists of multiple terms to be served concurrently rather than consecutively and effectively is a lot less than that. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case here.

      Vincent Lemark Burrell, 57, was given the weighty sentence in Paulding County after a jury found him guilty of 93 counts of dog fighting and 10 counts of cruelty to animals, the Paulding District Attorney’s Office said on Friday.

      So he’s got 93 counts of dog fighting, and 10 counts of cruelty to animals.

      The article says that this is in Georgia.

      goes looking for Georgia sentencing guidelines

      https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-17/chapter-10/article-1/section-17-10-10/

      (a) Where at one term of court a person is convicted on more than one indictment or accusation, or on more than one count thereof, and sentenced to imprisonment, the sentences shall be served concurrently unless otherwise expressly provided therein.

      (b) Where a person is convicted on more than one indictment or accusation at separate terms of court, or in different courts, and sentenced to imprisonment, the sentences shall be served concurrently, one with the other, unless otherwise expressly provided therein.

      (c) This Code section shall apply alike to felony and misdemeanor offenses.

      (d) This Code section shall govern and shall be followed by the Department of Corrections in the computation of time that sentences shall run.

      It sounds like this was a single court session and multiple counts. So I’d guess that (a) probably takes effect, and I’d guess that he has a metric shit-ton of terms of prison to serve, but he serves them concurrently.

      • chingadera@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Are you suggesting these dogs forgo 20+ pets with a minimum of 4 scratches right now?

        Get the fuck out of here

    • bitflag@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Agreed, some murders and rapists get less than 5% of this sentence. The issue is consecutive jail terms where one “big crime” is cut into many crimes so that each adds to the total.