By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

JACKSON COUNTY, Mich. — Matt Mercier and James Henderson Jr. are breathing a lot easier this week, since Circuit Judge Chad Schmucker agreed to dismiss three counts of felony animal torture against the pair stemming from a raid of their Grass Lake, Mich., horse farm last year.

“I feel great as of today,” Mercier said last Thursday. “It’s a first step towards justice.”

Schmucker wrote in his opinion that the case should never have been brought to circuit court because the prosecution hadn’t met its burden of probable cause. The case was originally in district court on a misdemeanor animal neglect charge, but Judge Joseph Filip sent it to circuit court after felony animal torture charges were filed about a year ago.

The ranch Mercier leased with his business partner, Henderson, was raided by Jackson County Animal Control officers in March 2007 after a police officer reported seeing horses that looked unhealthy. The men were charged with animal neglect, a 93-day misdemeanor.

Later, the charge was upgraded to felony animal torture, which carries a maximum four-year sentence. All of Mercier’s and Henderson’s 69 horses were seized by animal control officers.
Most were later auctioned off at a series of sales. Some of the horses foaled while they were in animal control’s care, and the county ended up with approximately 80 horses.

In April 2007 Kimberlee Luce, animal control director, said “some of the horses were in very bad shape. We body-scored them, and they were anywhere from severely emaciated to poor.”

The felony animal torture charges stemmed from the conditions of three horses in particular. While the felony charges have all been dismissed, the misdemeanor charge of animal neglect remains.
“At a minimum, there is disputed evidence of neglect, but there is simply no evidence that these defendants intended to harm any of these three animals,” Schmucker wrote in his opinion. “Even assuming both defendants were on the farm, their mere negligent acts are not enough. They may have simply been below-average farmers making unintentional mistakes, which is what it appears the District Court concluded.

“I find that because there was no finding by the District Court to suggest that either of the defendants knew their actions were wrong at the time this crime was committed, or that they intended to cause physical or mental harm to any of these three animals, that the District Court erred in finding probable cause.”

In an interview last week, Mercier complained about the way the whole episode unfolded.

“They had a rogue rescue group that only cared about money,” he said. “They had a rogue prosecutor that just wanted to make a name for herself. They had a rogue animal control officer who only saw an episode of ‘Animal Cops’ for herself. They highly politicized the case from the get-go.”

Mercier accused Animal Control Officer Heather Wheaton of lying in a sworn document when she said he told her that he was a personal friend of Robert Sray’s, a veterinarian who was under contract with animal control at the time of the raid. Sray has denied that he was Mercier’s personal friend or that he told Wheaton he was.

Mercier also accused Wheaton of lying when, according to Mercier, she said there was no food or water at the time animal control came onto the farm in March 2007.

Mercier is planning a lawsuit to recover his lost assets, which in addition to the horses, includes a significant amount of equipment that disappeared from the leased property, he said.

Since the raid last year, Jackson County Animal Control has been restructured and put under the auspices of the sheriff’s department.

Schmucker decided in his ruling to keep what remains of the case in circuit court because he said the case has gone on too long and that remanding it back to district court would put an undue burden on everyone involved. He noted in his opinion that the preliminary exam for the case lasted eight days, involved 1,963 pages and 33 witnesses.

The prosecutor’s office says it believes the felony animal torture charges were appropriate and it is considering appealing Schmucker’s decision.

Schmucker has set a trial date on the misdemeanor charge for June 16 at 8:30 a.m.