# Can an animal be legally prosecuted? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305 "2009-08-04T16:22:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bisected8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@Bisected8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bisected8)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/1 "2009-08-04T16:22:03Z")
While I was posting in another forum a recent story on the arrest of some backpackers in Iran reminded me of [this story](http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/20/280529.aspx) wherein squirrels were accused of being British spies (to this day there hasn’t been any word on whether they were red or grey). This in turn made me think of stories where animals were executed for witchcraft in the middle ages. This has go me wondering; are there any laws in any modern (or no longer existent) nations that allow animals to be prosecuted/arrested/punished, either by law or legal precedent? ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/2 "2009-08-04T16:39:36Z")
There’s a famous story about a town in medieval Switzerland that prosecuted a rooster for laying an egg, as it had clearly entered into a compact with the devil. I googled for it and lo and behold found six more: [7 Ridiculous Cases Where Animals Were Put on Trial](http://www.cracked.com/article_17217_7-ridiculous-cases-where-animals-were-put-on-trial.html) ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/3 "2009-08-04T16:39:44Z")
I’m not sure this directly answers your question, but it might be useful background information. From here: [News about pets and animals](http://www.psyeta.org/sa/sa2.1/beirne.html) > [@](#): > > From the later Middle Ages until the eighteenth century, certain peoples in Europe held the anthropomorphic notion that animals could commit crime. Indeed, those animals that were officially suspected of so doing were prosecuted for their misdeeds in secular courts and, if convicted, were subject to a variety of punishments, including public execution. It is very likely that this medieval belief in animal criminality originated in Judaeo-Christian biblical dictates deeply imbricated in both legal practice and popular culture. In medieval times, secular and ecclesiastical authorities interpreted literally the Hebrew injunction in Exodus that goring oxen should be stoned to death. Additional biblical support for the prosecution of offending animals was found to lie in the prescription in Genesis (ix, 5) that animals are accountable for the shedding of human blood, in the cursing of the serpent in the Garden of Eden ( Genesis , iii, 14-15), in David’s cursing of the rocks and mountains of Gilboa (2 Samuel , i, 21), and elsewhere in the treatment of other recalcitrant inanimate objects (see Hyde 1916, p. 700, n. 17). > > . . . > > Finally, I must note some thorny questions about the claim that the prosecution of animals for crime halted after 1800. Evans implicitly suggested that this was due to the emergence of a generalised scientific Weltanschauung and, especially, to the creation of rational legal thought. Similarly, Finkelstein (1981, p. 81) reasons that because the execution of homicidal animals in Europe represented the literal implementation of biblical dictates, the trials inevitably declined with the rise of learning and of scientific enlightenment. Yet if the pivotal fact in explaining the disappearance of animal trials was the rise of science and the secularization of religion, then why did the trials peak between 1600 and 1700, at the very moment when the movement in science was at its height, and why did they continue, albeit sporadically, well into the nineteenth century? Why did other similarly irrational legal practices, such as judicial torture, disappear far earlier than animal trials? Moreover, there are alternative explanatory candidates for the decline of animal trials and of animal executions. Just as plausibly, for example, they can be traced to the growth of urban environments and to the development of a moral sensibility towards animals (Tester, 1991, pp. 73-75). Much more at the source. ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/4 "2009-08-04T16:50:24Z")
Dogs and other animals in the U.S. with rabies are routinely given a death sentence. So are dogs with a history of aggression/biting. ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/5 "2009-08-04T16:53:28Z")
In Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of The Snark a dead pig was prosecuted. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/6 "2009-08-04T16:53:54Z")
> [@Spiff](#): > > Dogs and other animals in the U.S. with rabies are routinely given a death sentence. But it’s a “sentence” in the metaphorical sense, yes? I mean, there’s not some dog court judge who is banging a gavel and sentencing Fido who is then dragged away by the bailiff. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/7 "2009-08-04T17:10:38Z")
No, I know this because I was watching the “Berverly Hillbillies,” and the Clampetts were “a-back” in the hills “a-visiting” and Mr Drysdale went out on the Clampett truck to get them (they had flown back). He took along a Elly’s bear, Fairchild, and all of Granny’s moonshine. The bear was great protection from those nasty revenuers. But the in addition to running the truck on the moonshine, Fairchild got put hooked on it. Both Drysdale and Fairchild wound up in jail, but when Sam Drucker (Who crossed over from “Petticoat Junction”) went to bail him out, we then find out, the bear was just “sleeping it off.” As the sheriff says “You can’t prosecute a bear.” Although Mr Drysdale, was charged to contributing to the delinquency of a bear, as well as running moonshine and being a vagrant 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/8 "2009-08-04T17:12:12Z")
> [@Spiff](#): > > Dogs and other animals in the U.S. with rabies are routinely given a death sentence. But they don’t get a trial. ---
**Author:** ![Bisected8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a4c791/32.png) [@Bisected8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bisected8)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/9 "2009-08-04T17:19:06Z")
> [@Spiff](#): > > Dogs and other animals in the U.S. with rabies are routinely given a death sentence. > > So are dogs with a history of aggression/biting. Nope, they are being euthanised. Animals don’t have sufficient rights in that sense to be receiving the death penalty, rather they are receiving what technically comes under “treatment”. > **[Animal euthanasia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_euthanasia)** > > Animal euthanasia (euthanasia from Greek: εὐθανασία; "good death") is the act of killing an animal humanely, most commonly with injectable drugs. Reasons for euthanasia include terminal, incurable (and especially painful) conditions or diseases, lack of resources to continue supporting the animal, or laboratory test procedures. Euthanasia methods are designed to cause minimal pain and distress. Euthanasia is distinct from animal slaughter and pest control. > In domesticated animals, the discussi... > [@janeslogin](#): > > In Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of The Snark a dead pig was prosecuted. Let us pray that doesn’t become legal prescient. Lest Old Liz starts having people decapitated whenever she loses a game of croquet. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/10 "2009-08-04T17:57:35Z")
> [@Bisected8](#): > > Nope, they are being euthanised. Animals don’t have sufficient rights in that sense to be receiving the death penalty, rather they are receiving what technically comes under “treatment”. No, they are being killed. “Euthanasia” is properly defined as killing _for the good of the victim,_ almost always “to end suffering.” You _euthanize_ an animal with incurable cancer; you _kill_ or _put down_ a surplus animal or one that is dangerous. I’m aware many kill shelters _misuse_ the word euthanize to make their staff feel better about what they feel they have to do; that does not make it _correct,_ except in a Orwellian sense of twisting language to control the way people think. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/11 "2009-08-04T19:45:43Z")
> [@Spiff](#): > > Dogs and other animals in the U.S. with rabies are routinely given a death sentence. > So are dogs with a history of aggression/biting. Not to mention those whose only crime is loitering. (a/k/a/ strays) ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/12 "2009-08-04T19:57:43Z")
My ex-SIL lived in Nigeria for a while a few years ago working in a preserve to protect the large monkey species, Mandrills. Where she was, the concept of Juju is still very powerful. I don’t know all the implications of it but the locals firmly believed that some people could transform themselves into animals if needed. She got contacted that a mandrill was “arrested” and being held at the local jail in a nearby town because it was believed to be a criminal that transformed himself to get away with it. She and her team had to go to the station, plead with the police, bribe them, and then promise to lock this “prisoner” up on their own preserve. They eventually convinced them. I don’t know what would have happened if they couldn’t get the Mandrill out of jail. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/13 "2009-08-04T20:14:43Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > But it’s a “sentence” in the metaphorical sense, yes? I mean, there’s not some dog court judge who is banging a gavel and sentencing Fido who is then dragged away by the bailiff. \*Picturing Fido smoking cigarettes and waiting for the phone call from the Governor. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotGrrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9dc877/32.png) [@PatriotGrrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotGrrrl)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/14 "2009-08-04T22:00:06Z")
Since sums of money, cars, and houses can be, so could animals, although they wouldn’t do it unless the animal was valuable. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/15 "2009-08-04T23:01:41Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > But they don’t get a trial. Doesn’t a judge or magistrate have issue some kind of order? The dog may not have any rights, but the owner does. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/16 "2009-08-04T23:29:36Z")
Animals are generally considered property under U.S. law. Obviously, they’re different from a piece of property like a couch, but they are property, and if an animal does something that would be a crime if a person did it, the animal’s owner is legally responsible. > [@PatriotGrrrl](#): > > Since sums of money, cars, and houses can be, so could animals, although they wouldn’t do it unless the animal was valuable. I’m not sure what you mean. They can be sought as damages in civil suits, but they can’t be prosecuted. A sum of money can’t be a defendant. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/17 "2009-08-04T23:40:14Z")
I took a couple of Medieval Studies classes in the early to mid eighties, and the professor mentioned a case where a falling roof timber was put on trial and executed by burning. It had fallen and killed someone. Not sure how prevalent the prosecution of inanimate objects was. He only mentioned one case with no details. ---
**Author:** ![Jerseyman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Jerseyman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerseyman)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/18 "2009-08-05T00:10:19Z")
I’ve never heard of prosecuting inanimate objects but there are two possibilities. The first is that it might be possessed by a devil and it is really the devil on trial. The other is that they may not have had much in the way of a coroner’s court of enquiry and had to use criminal procedures to establish whether for instance, the owner was negligent in allowing material to become dangerously dilapidated. Finding the material guilty would amount to finding the owner not responsible. In modern times, _intent_ and _compos mentis_ rule animals out but they were often tried in the Middle Ages (once at least a cockerel for laying an egg - not that uncommon). Again, the alternative might have been that if the animal was not responsible, then somebody had bewitched it, so it was better to condemn the animal than let a witch hysteria loose. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/19 "2009-08-05T00:57:49Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m not sure what you mean. They can be sought as damages in civil suits, but they can’t be prosecuted. A sum of money can’t be a defendant. [The United States vs. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=241&invol=265) ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305/20 "2009-08-05T01:12:14Z")
Book 'em, Lou. One count of being a bear. And one count of being accessory to being a bear. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-an-animal-be-legally-prosecuted/505305.md?page=2)