Ex Parte Mauch

William Mauch was convicted in the police court of the city of Marysville upon a charge of cruelty to an animal, committed, as the complaint charged, by willfully and unlawfully cruelly beating and torturing a certain dog named “Sport,” etc.

It is claimed that his imprisonment upon said conviction is unlawful because" the complaint fails to charge that the act was malicious, and that malice is an essential ingredient of the crime. It is true that the beating and torturing must be ma licious, in order to constitute the offense (Pen. Code, sec. 597), but willful and unlawful cruelty is malice.…