Massachusetts
Anti-Cruelty StatutesMASSACHUSETTS
GENERAL LAWS
PART IV. CRIMES, PUNISHMENTS AND PROCEEDINGS
IN CRIMINAL
CASES
TITLE I. CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS
CHAPTER 272. CRIMES AGAINST CHASTITY,
MORALITY,
DECENCY AND GOOD ORDER
§
77. Cruelty to Animals.
Whoever overdrives, overloads, drives when overloaded, overworks, tortures, torments,
deprives of necessary sustenance, cruelly beats, mutilates or kills an animal,
or causes or procures an animal to be overdriven, overloaded, driven when overloaded,
overworked, tortured,tormented, deprived of necessary sustenance, cruelly beaten,
mutilated or killed; and whoever uses in a cruel or inhuman manner in a race,
game, or contest, or in training therefor, as lure or bait a live animal, except
an animal if used as lure or bait in fishing; and whoever, having the charge or
custody of an animal, either as owner or otherwise, inflicts unnecessary cruelty
upon it, or unnecessarily fails to provide it with proper food, drink, shelter,
sanitary environment, or protection from the weather, and whoever, as owner, possessor,
or person having the charge or custody of an animal, cruelly drives or works it
when unfit for labor, or willfully abandons it, or carries it or causes it to
be carried in or upon a vehicle, or otherwise, in an unnecessarily cruel or inhuman
manner or in a way and manner which might endanger the animal carried thereon,
or knowingly and willfully authorizes or permits it to be subjected to unnecessary
torture, suffering or cruelty of any kind shall be punished by a fine of not more
than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.
In addition to
any other penalty provided by law, upon conviction for any violation of this section
or of sections seventy-seven A, seventy-eight, seventy-eight A, seventy-nine A,
seventy-nine B, eighty A, eighty B, eighty C, eighty D, eighty F, eighty-six,
eighty-six A, eighty-six B or ninety-four the defendant may, after an appropriate
hearing to determine the defendant's fitness for continued custody of the abused
animal, be ordered to surrender or forfeit to the custody of any society, incorporated
under the laws of the commonwealth for the prevention of cruelty to animals or
for the care and protection of homeless or suffering animals, the animal whose
treatment was the basis of such conviction
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