Animal cruelty charges dropped

Judge: Police failed to obtain necessary search warrant

Sanders County Justice Court Judge Donald Strine has granted public defender Britt Cotter's motion to suppress in the Aleta Rogers animal cruelty case, ruling that 29 counts of animal cruelty will be dropped because Sanders County Sheriff's Office deputies failed to obtain the search warrant necessary to enter the woman's Thompson Falls property.

Rogers reportedly confined 54 dogs in four urine- and feces-saturated trailers. Twelve of the animals did not survive a rescue attempt by Thompson River Animal Care Shelter and community members.

Rogers appeared before Strine last Wednesday for an evidentiary hearing. The conditions the animals were allegedly subjected to were only touched on at the hearing, as Cotter and Sanders County Attorney Coleen Magera clashed over the legality of Sgt. Jerry McKeen's warrantless entrance onto the woman's secluded Thompson Falls-area property March 13.

Strine wrote in his order that he questioned the existence of exigent circumstances - an exception to search warrant requirements - when McKeen entered Rogers' property to investigate the whereabouts of a registered sex offender. Strine was also dubious that exigent circumstances existed when McKeen and Dave Hedley, a reserve patrol deputy, who investigates the department's animal cases, returned the following evening to follow up on the sex offender and dogs McKeen had seen on his previous visit to the property.

"If these were exigent circumstances then why was immediate action not taken?" Strine wrote in his ruling. He continued, "ample time and opportunity existed to obtain a search warrant regarding the dogs' conditions and investigation into any owner violations. From the initial contact on March 13 until the actual removal of the dogs on March 15, there was plenty of time to secure the scene and obtain a search warrant."

McKeen testified that he visited Rogers' land - 20 acres located on Cardinal Way west of Thompson Falls - at the request of state sex offender registry officials, who believed an unregistered sex offender might be residing at Rogers' property. In his ruling, Strine noted that McKeen visited Rogers' property seven days after receiving the initial request from state sex offender officials.

While on Rogers' property, McKeen said he heard dogs barking and viewed dogs through the window. He returned to the police office, contacted Hedley and the two returned to Rogers' property the next evening to follow up on the sex offender and dog matters.

Hedley testified that Rogers granted him permission to enter the trailers, and "the smell from the defecation from the dogs themselves having been confined in those trailers was pretty horrific. Everywhere you stepped you were stepping on a carpet of fecal matter."