State of Connecticut v. Delano Josephs

Summary

The court affirmed the defendant’s conviction for unjustifiably injuring a cat under the animal-cruelty statute. It held that the offense requires only a general intent to engage in the conduct that causes the injury, not a specific intent to injure, and that the statute was not unconstitutionally vague as applied because shooting a neighbor’s cat with a BB gun fell within the statute’s unmistakable core of prohibited conduct. The court also concluded that circumstantial evidence sufficiently established that the defendant shot the cat.