ohmidog!

A Superior Court Judge in New Jersey dismissed charges this week against a former Moorestown police officer accused of inserting part of his body into the mouths of several cows.

Judge James J. Morley said it wasn’t clear that the act constituted cruelty to animals.

Former Moorestown police officer Robert Melia Jr., since suspended from the force, was accused of repeating the act with five calves in rural Southampton in 2006.

But the judge, according to a Philadelphia Daily News report, claimed a grand jury that heard the case couldn’t decide if the cows were irritated by the act.

“If the cow had the cognitive ability to form thought and speak, would it say, ‘Where’s the milk? I’m not getting any milk,’” he said. Morley also pointed out that children seemed “comforted” when given pacifiers. “They [children] enjoy the act of suckling,” the judge said. “Cows may be of a different disposition.”

Judge Morley has a four-star rating on the website Courthouse Forum, where one of two anonymouse commenters praised him for “seeing right through the bull.”

Burlington County Assistant County Prosecutor Kevin Morgan was disturbed by the ruling, and the fact that the grand jury wasn’t allowed to view videos of the alleged incident, including one in which a calf allegedly head-butted Melia in the stomach.

“I think any reasonable juror could infer that a man’s penis in the mouth of a calf is torment,” Morgan argued. “It’s a crime against nature.”

Although a bill was introduced in 2005 to ban bestiality, New Jersey has not passed such legislation — one reason that the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office charged Melia with animal cruelty.

Morley said it was questionable whether Melia’s alleged crimes against cows, although “disgusting,” fit the definitions in the animal-cruelty statute. “I’m not saying it’s OK,” Morley said. “This is a legal question for me. It’s not a questions of morals. It’s not a question of hygiene. It’s not a question of how people should conduct themselves.”

Melia and his former girlfriend, Heather Lewis, were arrested in April 2008,  after a girl told her stepfather she’d been abused by the couple. During the investigation, authorities say they discovered child pornography on Melia’s home computer as well as videos of him and  the cows.

Melia and Lewis still face charges of sexually assaulting three young girls over a five-year period, sometimes in Melia’s Cottage Avenue home in Moorestown.

Let’s hope that case goes before a different judge.

(Photo: Robert Melia Jr., via Philadelphia Daily News)