(a)

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Terms Used In Tennessee Code 39-14-205

  • Animal: means a domesticated living creature or a wild creature previously captured. See Tennessee Code 39-14-201
  • Bodily injury: includes a cut, abrasion, bruise, burn or disfigurement, and physical pain or temporary illness or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
  • Effective consent: means assent in fact, whether express or apparent, including assent by one legally authorized to act for another. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
  • Owner: means a person, other than the defendant, who has possession of or any interest other than a mortgage, deed of trust or security interest in property, even though that possession or interest is unlawful and without whose consent the defendant has no authority to exert control over the property. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
  • Person: includes the singular and the plural and means and includes any individual, firm, partnership, copartnership, association, corporation, governmental subdivision or agency, or other organization or other legal entity, or any agent or servant thereof. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
  • Property: means anything of value, including, but not limited to, money, real estate, tangible or intangible personal property, including anything severed from land, library material, contract rights, choses-in-action, interests in or claims to wealth, credit, admission or transportation tickets, captured or domestic animals, food and drink, electric or other power. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
(1) It is an offense to knowingly and unlawfully kill the animal of another without the owner‘s effective consent.
(2) A violation of subdivision (a)(1) is theft of property, graded according to the value of the animal, and punished in accordance with § 39-14-105.
(b) A person is justified in killing the animal of another if the person acted under a reasonable belief that the animal was creating an imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury to that person or another or an imminent danger of death to an animal owned by or in the control of that person. A person is not justified in killing the animal of another if, at the time of the killing, the person is trespassing upon the property of the owner of the animal.