Man argues at 11th Circuit that 10-year sentence in deadly dog fighting was ‘unreasonable’

ATLANTA (CN) — A federal appeals court heard arguments Tuesday from a man challenging his 10-year prison sentence for convictions related to dog fighting, including hanging a dog in 2017 after it wouldn't finish a fight.

In his appeal to the 11th Circuit, Leslie Meyers says that his sentencing was “substantively unreasonable” and that a federal court failed to consider his objection that he did not kill the dog.

Much of the evidence presented to the lower court relied on statements from three other defendants involved in the dog fight. They claimed that Meyers got upset after his dog refused to continue attacking the losing dog after it won the fight, a custom known as a "courtesy scratch." The other defendants said Meyers then tried to hang the dog with his belt from the tailgate of a vehicle, before hanging it from a tree branch until it suffocated.

When police searched a property owned by Kizzy Solomon, who had been in a romantic relationship with Meyers, they found 29 large dogs, many of which were emaciated and had scars consistent with dog fighting. They also found animal treadmills, wooden enclosures with fight records notched on the wood, and various animal medications, including steroids.

Meyers had prior convictions in Leon County, Florida, where authorities found 26 pit bull-type dogs on his property that he was training for fighting, as well as blood and two dead dogs chained to the ground that had died from untreated injuries.

Under the terms of a plea agreement, the government had agreed to recommend that the court sentence Meyers to a prison term of no more than 72 months.

However, U.S. District Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner determined that an upward variance from the guidelines was warranted, given Meyers' "horrific" killing of the dog, the danger posed by bringing a firearm to a dog fight, and his extensive criminal history, which included dozens of counts of animal cruelty.

During his sentencing, Meyers denied hanging the dog, claiming that he left it with the other fight organizers and did not know what happened afterward. But the judge said the evidence suggested Meyers was responsible for killing the dog.

Jonathan Dodson, a federal public defender for the Middle District of Georgia, argued to the 11th Circuit Tuesday that Meyers did not admit to killing the dog as part of his plea agreement and that there was good cause for the court to consider his objection.

The three-judge circuit panel included Elizabeth Branch, Robert Luck and Kevin Newsom, all of whom were appointed by former President Donald Trump.

"Obviously this was a very belated statement from your client," Branch told Dodson. The circuit judge suggested that the court could view Meyers' statements as an "untimely objection" based on its reliance on the evidence in the pre-sentence investigation report.

But Luck appeared swayed by some of his argument, noting that because the lower court acknowledged Meyers' objection, the record is not completely undisputed, as argued by the government. He said that precedent suggests "specific good cause" is necessary to overturn an untimely objection.

John Emad Arbab, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division, argued that Meyers' counsel never proffered good cause for asserting a new objection, nor disputed the lower court's adoption of the facts as written in the pre-sentence report, other than two paragraphs about his criminal history.

"His first conviction was for unlawful dealing in firearms, and yet he was not deterred by past punishment for that conviction and brought a firearm to an already-violent dog-fight situation. And more importantly, the past animal cruelty convictions showed the district court that punishment for those crimes had not deterred Meyers from almost the same exact behavior in 2018," Attorney Bridget Kennedy McNeil wrote in the DOJ's appellee brief.

The circuit judges did not signal when they would issue a ruling.

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