In People v. Dunn (1974) 39 Cal.App.3d 418, the defendant was charged with animal cruelty under Penal Code section 597, subdivision (a). The trial court instructed that malice meant "an intent to do a wrongful act." (Dunn, at p. 420.) At the time, Penal Code section 597 was written very differently. Penal Code section 597, subdivision (a) (hereafter subdivision (a)) applied exclusively to cruelty to an animal owned by another; it expressly required malice. Penal Code section 597, subdivision (b) (hereafter subdivision (b)) applied to cruelty to any animal, and it did not expressly require malice. (People v. Dunn, supra, 39 Cal.App.3d at p. 420; see Stats. 1972, ch. 779, 1, p. 1394.) The defendant therefore argued that the malice required under subdivision (a) must be malice toward the owner of the animal. (Dunn, at pp. 420-421.) The appellate court disagreed. It reasoned that subdivision (b), by using such words as "tortures," "torments," and "cruelly beats," still implicitly required malice, in the sense of an intent to do a wrongful act. (People v. Dunn, supra, 39 Cal.App.3d at pp. 420-421.) It concluded: "Thus we find no error in the court's failure to instruct that the word 'maliciously' imports a wish to 'vex, annoy, or injure another person.' That instruction would be proper under a statute designed to proscribe malicious mischief, but has no place in a statute intended to prohibit cruelty to animals, which section 597 clearly is intended to do." (Id. at p. 421.) In sum, then, Dunn held that, in a prosecution under subdivision (a), the trial court is not required to instruct that malice consists of a wish to injure another person. It reasoned that the malice expressly required under subdivision (a) could be the same kind of malice implicitly required under subdivision (b). However, it did not hold that such an instruction would be erroneous. Indeed, its analysis suggests the contrary. Its statement that such an instruction "has no place" in a prosecution under subdivision (a) seems to be simply overbroad dictum.