Click2Famous Trials - Animals as Criminal Defendants - Chapter 1 - Preface

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>ANIMALS AS CRIMINAL DEFENDANTS</p></b></font></p> </font> </div> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">Today, if an animal kills a human being, it is often "put to sleep" so it doesn't injure someone else. In medieval times, a killer animal was put on trial for similar "crimes." Sound weird? It gets more interesting. Animals who got in trouble the most were pigs. In 1266, a pig was tried in Fontenay-aux Roses (near Paris) and convicted of killing a child. Its sentence? Death by burning. Another pig (a sow) who got in trouble was dressed in men's clothes and publicly executed in a French village. The year was 1386. <p align="justify">Some folks think stories about these trials are just folk tales. It is impossible to fathom how a prosecutor could prove "criminal intent" on the part of an animal defendant! How would a non-thinking being suddenly become capable of thinking?</p> <p align="justify">On the other hand, a respected French jurist and criminal lawyer wrote about animal trials in 1531. Bartholomew Chassenee recorded the kind of legal analysis applied during the centuries when the practice was used. People thought Satan was acting through animals when they destroyed human life. Sometimes the guilty animals were even excommunicated by the Catholic Church.</p> <p align="justify">Lest we in the "modern" age get too smug about "unenlightened" medieval people, it's useful to keep in mind the last known case of a defendant animal "standing" trial. It happened in Switzerland, in 1906.</p> <center></font><font face="arial, helvetica" size=4 color=ff0000><b>READ MORE ABOUT IT</b><br> <font face="arial, helvetica" size="3"><a href="http://english.colchsfc.ac.uk/barnes10.htm" target="_blank"><b>Check out this excellent bibliography</b></a>.<br><br> </td> </tr> </table></center> </td> </tr> </table> </table> </body>