Provost receives exceptional sentence, avoids incarceration

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Tari Eitzen continued her role as the presiding judge in a case against Sharon Provost, who was found guilty by a jury of six counts relating to a June 2008 seizure of 111 dogs at her residence in Lind, last Friday in Adams County.

After listening to Adams County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Carolyn Jones and public defender Dennis Lewellen as well as a statement by Provost, Judge Eitzen used the first-offender option to sentence Provost.

“I am using the first-offender option. I know in the first-offender option the court has the authority to impose 0-90 days confinement,” Eitzen said as the hearing neared completion. “I thought about this a lot. I’m not imposing any confinement. I did think about home detention but I don’t think that accomplishes anything either. I think that this is an individual, in the long run, the community would be better served if she was out and about as opposed to sort of cloistered at home where nobody can see what’s going on. And frankly, I’d be worried under a situation where nobody can see her coming and going that she was cloistered that she might be able to have an animal so I think we’re just better off if the daylight hits the situation.”

Eitzen ordered first-offender option with no confinement on all four counts of first-degree animal cruelty as well as imposing an exceptional sentence of prohibition of owning, housing, harboring or caring for domestic animals for 20 years, which is through stacking the five years maximum of prohibition for each felony count, and a $1,000 civil penalty.

Although Eitzen originally imposed an exceptional sentence prohibiting dogs, she added cats by the end of the hearing.

For the two counts of unlawful confinement, which are misdemeanors, Provost received 60 days suspended on each count for a total of 120 days, six months of supervision and a $150 fine.

Eitzen agreed to stay the execution pending an appeal, which allows Provost to not start paying fines and fees through the appeal process, as long as conditions prohibiting owning, housing, harboring or caring for domestic animals are in effect.

The judge deferred signing motion declaration of order of indigency after learning Provost owns real estate.

“I’ve never had a circumstance where somebody owned real estate of this value free and clear and I’ve signed an order of indigency. I’m concerned about that,” Eitzen said. “I’m concerned that the property not be disposed of in a way other than a valid purchaser in order to avoid paying attorney fees… I am making a finding that she has the likely future ability to pay legal financial obligations. She doesn’t have the current income but she owns real estate free and clear. I will leave it to the state to decide what they want to do about that in terms of judgment and judgment collection.”

Jones handled the sentencing hearing for Mike Morgan, who tried the case but was unable to attend the hearing.

She noted that the state sought a sentencing of 10.5 months of incarceration for the four felony counts and 60 days on each misdemeanor count to run consecutively for 120 days but to run concurrently with the felony matters.

“She has no prior felony history, however she does have an offender score of three, which gives her a sentencing range of 9-12 months. It is the state’s position that the presumptive range is 10.5 months and there is absolutely no basis to go below that range of 10.5 months,” Jones said.

“It is the state’s position that there are no mitigating factors, which would warrant a sentence below that 10.5 presumptive range. The defendant’s age and mental health certainly are not mitigating factors in this case. She has no documented health problems nor has there been any diagnosis of mental illness. It is also the state’s position that she is not a candidate worthy of first-time offender option,” she continued.

“She has taken absolutely no responsibility for her actions throughout this ordeal. The actions to the animals in this case were nothing short of cruel. Her treatment of these animals was unimaginable for most members of the public. For those reasons, the state will request that the court sentence her in the presumptive range. In addition to a sentence of 10.5 months the state will be requesting that she be prohibited from owning any animals, harboring any animals or residing in a home with any animals.”

Lewellen asked the court for a first-time offender option.

“The basis for that is the fact she doesn’t have any prior criminal history and I think that is enough to grant the first-time offender,” he said.

“She’s never been in serious trouble, none that I’m aware of. In the time that this case has been pending we’ve not ever had any problems with her… I don’t think that jail is appropriate in this case. Prosecution says that age isn’t a mitigating factor. The fact is she’s 75 years old, never been in jail before.

“Our facility is small and crowded. It’s not going to have any effect on her in terms of her behavior once she gets out of jail; she will be the same person that she is today, that she will be tomorrow if she’s incarcerated other than the fact it would be a miserable experience for her. I don’t think it will have any remedial affect on her. I think it’s unnecessary. I think the prohibitions will handle any concerns the state may have.”

Eitzen offered Provost an opportunity to speak.

“It was a whole month after they took my dogs before I was able to go back to my house to spend the night. I had nightmares every time I’d shut my eyes, every nap, every time I tried to sleep, for over two years constantly… What I see in those nightmares is the faces of my little dogs… I was their protector and their caretaker for their whole life… It seems like from the beginning they tried to portray me as an animal hoarder, that I had a puppy mill, that I was mentally ill. I knew that wasn’t true.”

Provost felt she had been misrepresented and that the accusations were faulty, especially regarding the conditions of the dogs when they were seized by the Adams County Sheriff’s Office accompanied by Adams County Pet Rescue volunteers.

“(The dogs) had been fed and there are times in there they said they hadn’t been fed. The day they made the seizures the animals at the flat I hadn’t been there yet… I feed them and I wait probably 20 minutes or half an hour and I go back to see who needs some more food… you basically feed them what they can eat. You can’t keep them too heavy or too thin or they don’t reproduce.

“One of the little dogs that died I had paid $450 for him and I think if you think about it a little bit, with a $700 monthly income it takes a bit of sacrifice to get that much money together to buy the dog. I obviously did not want anything to happen to him.

“I’ve read the animal cruelty statute and I don’t see how it was construed the way it was. In my heart and before God, who is the ultimate judge of us all, I didn’t cause, I couldn’t prevent the death of those dogs that day… I wasn’t out there so I can’t say exactly what happened but I know that I didn’t cause it and I have a clear conscious on that. The dog that jumped over the fence died of strangulation. I didn’t do it. I kept that dog a whole lot longer than most people would have. I went the extra mile with him many times…

“Those dogs were not vicious. They were scared to death… There was no animal cruelty except what pet rescue did to my dogs and to me.”

Judge Eitzen stated after Provost spoke that, “I find it interesting to hear Mrs. Provost’s rendition of the procedure that we followed and indeed, just as an aside I’ll let you know that I did ask for a mental health evaluation of you after I read the file and after I saw some of the photos originally…

“This is an interesting case. I’ve sat through the whole thing. I’ve heard the testimony. I saw all the exhibits and I’ve listened carefully to everything Mrs. Provost has said. I believe Mrs. Provost believes what she says. I think that’s really clear.

“I think it’s also really clear, at least to me and I would think to at least some of you in the courtroom, that there’s a disconnect here. I don’t know how (a mental health doctor) came up with the opinion that she’s legally competent,” Eitzen continued.

“I do know that this lady believes in her heart that she took good care of these dogs. I do know for a fact that that’s a significant departure from reality. In regard to the condition and the treatment of these dogs, it is absolutely unbelievable that any rational person could hear this testimony, see these photos and not feel sickened by what happened to these animals. I believe you ma’am, as you sit here today, you think you did a good job taking care of them. That’s simply not true. The circumstances that were depicted in this case were nothing short of, and I hesitate to say this, but a horror show. Dead animals in cages mummified, hanging in showers, hanging by their neck in the sun.

“I’ve been a judge for 18 years. I’ve done a number of murder cases. These pictures were disturbing. Any human being would be disturbed by these photos. It shows a long period of this kind of behavior.

“All that being said, and because of that, because of what I see as a significant departure from reality, two things are clear to me: Number 1 – there’s nothing to be gained by incarcerating a 75-year-old woman who has departed, in many ways, from reality. There’s just nothing to be accomplished except to further tax the citizens of this county… This county has already paid and paid and paid for this woman’s actions. I don’t see that there’s any purpose in making the county pay in terms of incarcerating her. I think there’s a significant possibility that she could become a more significant cost to the county than just incarceration if she were contained. So I’m going to use the first-offender option.

“Number 2 – something that’s perfectly clear to me is that if I don’t impose an exceptional sentence in terms of prohibition on animals, she will have dogs again. She will abuse dogs again, through the extreme neglect that amounts to very significant cruelty. There’s just no way that she’s not going to have dogs again if she can. If I were to impose the five years prohibition, which is the statutory maximum, on not having dogs, five years and one day after today, from what she’s telling me today and from the record, she’s going to get dogs and this is going to happen again because of her ingrained belief she didn’t do anything wrong, that she’s good to her animals.

Eitzen’s findings and support for the exceptional length of the prohibition on owning, harboring, caring for or living with dogs were:

No. 1 – “The extreme neglect rising to the level of cruelty that was so above and beyond I think anything contemplated, certainly by this court prior, or by the drafters of the statute.”

No. 2 – “The sheer volume of the victimized dogs. We have four counts but this was the tip of the iceberg in terms of the dogs that suffered. When you look at the case, this was an inordinate unusual number of dogs.”

No. 3 – “The stubborn and ingrained belief that what she did was correct, to this day, after sitting in this courtroom and hearing the testimony and seeing the exhibits, she’s still in her mind and in her heart believes that she took good care of these animals. That tells me that she’s never going to let go of that belief and that she would act in the future if she were to ever have access to a dog again.”

No. 4 – “She believes she’s the victim here. You listen to Mrs. Provost talk, most of the content or a lot of the content is how nobody did right by her. She’s been wronged. She hasn’t been wronged… I insisted on a mental health evaluation. She has absolutely not been the victim. She believes that she has been and that fosters the belief that she is entitled to have dogs, and that it’s wrong she’s not allowed to have dogs.”

No. 5 – “She again and again strongly voices her desire and her intent to have dogs. She believes she deserves to have dogs in the future. She intends to have animals again. She wants to have animals again. I think for all of these reasons the court is justified in stacking the five year maximum on each felony and ordering the exceptional sentence that would consist of the prohibition of possessing, harboring, housing, caring for or living with animals in the same home for 20 years.”