18 U.S.C. § 1368
Section 1368 · Harming animals used in law enforcement
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case United States v. Kincade (2004)
Most recently applied in Rosemary White v. City of Detroit, Mich. (June 2022)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Whoever willfully and maliciously harms any police animal, or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be fined under this title and imprisoned not more than 1 year. If the offense permanently disables or disfigures the animal, or causes serious bodily injury to or the death of the animal, the maximum term of imprisonment shall be 10 years.
(b) In this section, the term “police animal” means a dog or horse employed by a Federal agency (whether in the executive, legislative, or judicial branch) for the principal purpose of aiding in the detection of criminal activity, enforcement of laws, or apprehension of criminal offenders.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
2002—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 107–273 inserted “to” after “serious bodily injury”.
Short Title of 2000 Amendment
Pub. L. 106–254, §1, Aug. 2, 2000, 114 Stat. 638, provided that: “This Act [enacting this section] may be cited as the ‘Federal Law Enforcement Animal Protection Act of 2000’.”