punishes innocent conduct and is unconstitutionally vague leaving citizens and law enforcement alike without adequate notice of what conduct my mental state is proscribed by it and i ask you ms rubio well we jump into the adequately analyze the reasonable doubt analysis is required to discredit with you what exactly the statute prescribes and so i contention is that the constitutionality of a statute is needed to review the qur'an matters of the statutes and particularly the constitutional attack in this case is still related to the reasonable doubt argument that under the particular circumstances of these types of constitutional attacks it's required to look at the scope of the statute because without looking at the scope of the statute it's really difficult for congress impossible to ascertain whether the defendant is actually guilty of it and people versus carpenter that's exactly what the owner supreme court did on appeal to the old i supreme court the state argued that the sufficiency argument overall should be reached by the court and the plate disagreed and said that it had to reach the constitutional issue first officers when they came the first time and then the second time days later when the execute of the search warrant but in fact the physical evidence relating to the dogs is undisputed that the dogs were in excellent physical health none of them are malnourished none of them evidence of animal cruelty no it's not on the an officer says if i did that there was theseus in your new home on those two instances that they broke in the home there's no evidence that they animals were soiled their coats were be resulting in the animal does the cheating or urinating out of anxiety or fear during the actual execution of a search warrant so it's really clear how much feces and urine was there and that their feces and urine in the house the animals are that's not cruel treatment i think that if i think that if the state had provided more evidence about how often and whether the end will swear in any fashion o animals were kept right paul long period of time i think that their means under these particular facts a prolonged period of time would suggest no one other culpable conduct  did the existence of feces and urine in a cage i know does not establish any kind of culpability mental state and say this is the perfect example of how the statute reaches too far because the state that unless it's stated to be absolute strict liability it's implied it would seem to mind a mental state such as knowledge of my intent does not save the statute because again we're talking about acts even if they're intentionally done through unknowingly done their acts here that could constitute cruel treatment because the term cruel is so broad abusive treatment which again the abusive is very dog on a street i stray dog that has to sleep hans and will probably die if i don't do anything to help it does my action of turning my back to stop constitute cruel treatment under the statute it's unclear and so it's really difficult for citizens in law enforcement to determine which conduct falls under the statute in which doesn't even intentionally turn my back to that animal but still you to assert that mr johnson was guilty of this offense you would need to determine the scale of the phrase cruel treatment or otherwise abuse because you need to determine that there the existence of the question that constitutional issue if none of the yeah is that the state charge mr johnson or trying to him under the evidence why would we need to address the constitutionality of this  us i just think it's a first step in the in a suspicion c n n now says is to look at the what the statute prohibits and then look to the defendant's conduct to determine whether his conduct back there yes i think that those things are so intertwined that it's difficult to parse to macau or under that because it's a constitutional attack on this based on that insufficiency of the abbot and spike we also encourage the poetry of you the constitutional issues because they're so intertwined and also the fact that we're standing here and i'm arguing that this and that instance does not support a finding of guilt and the state is arguing at the same time it in style surprise findings gelt does it actually you know relate to the school and content of the statute and so for those reasons i think it's important to review the constitutionality of it  and that counts for the people it's our position that not only do we prove the offense beyond a reasonable doubt but the statute passes constitutional muster the transfer of the statute a sufficiently definite treating and otherwise abusing an animal this trueness i highly specific in terms of the conduct prohibit it and as justice mason pointed out it's our position that session for three supplies a susceptible sometimes to reasonable debate so the mere fact that we have all the beliefs about what cruelty means doesn't make it unconstitutional and beg to be unconstitutionally beda true has to be so indefinite that recently people don't know what it means april which was a day after animal control had taken the docs away so not only did she start with a ride to the court and defense counsel had to back it up and try to get her to talk about the relevant timeframe but  about no chains are used for dog fighting never never seen that those were being credible in light of the fact that the that the actual fat not just the bat technician but the vet the testified in the state's case sa are six dogs in the heart we know for sure that two of them were mistreated and and the disaster in this case mr johnson is convicted of cruelty based on that sort of cover up or that was going on in that home and in fact some of the stories about how that dad was injured on a bad frame i frankly absurd because we have better testimony from a veterinarian to indicate that these were by police not just  statute prohibit acts that result in great injury or death now certainly if there's a real culpable mental state or intent on that it could potentially sweep in innocent conduct exist for the animal cruelty statute because it isn't just only asked remember it starvation abuse beating cruelty torment each  because the statute disobeyed and both here as or in any way unconstitutional it's simply because we in this case didn't match that threshold by a very minute amount because we do have a substantial amount of evidence  bit not directly tied to the defendant but circumstantially tied to the defendant where the stocks and in particular the one dog was being injured as a result of the treatment in that home so for these reasons and most in our brief we would ask any exact close attention to it thank you thank you was convicted in two thousand and five but clearly and i say two thousand and four for bilbray entering sentencing that quiet commented that he received a sentence of six years so i would if but this course permission i'd like to review more ok thank you in terms of the state's response as with respect to with the state argument that the statute is sufficiently precise and that the citizens of the state don't i'm entitled precision we're not doing that chris isn't is required we're arguing that citizens and law enforcement know what a crime is punishing and in this case there are some elements some actions that are specified by the cruel treatment statute that we're not contesting will be associated with a malicious or culpable mental state but the broad scope of the terms cruel treatment and otherwise abuse opens the statute up to punishing much more than just beating starving but other things that are inherently malicious the term specially with respect to the chain's there's no evidence at all that an