The intent in such cases is not to punish the animal, especially since said animal will never form any intellectual connection between its offense and its execution. It won’t even understand the fact that it’s being killed, let alone why.
The intent is to merely to eliminate an ongoing threat to humans in the area, since an animal that has killed humans is likely to do so again. It’s analogous to cutting down a dead tree that has large, decaying branches overhanging your house.
I wonder if any of this legal wrangling could apply to other creatures, possibly cyborgs, or even clones? Would a human clone be a fully lawful entity, or could something along the line of clone farms for transplants develop as in the movie Parts; the Clonus Horror?
I’ve heard that scientists have, in fact, already created human clones, and that one of these scientists has been arrested for shoving a clone off a building to its death.
Apparently, the scientist became enraged when the clone swore at him, and made rude gestures.
I use the term “its” because the arrested scientist plans to use the “clones aren’t human and therefore cannot be murdered” defense.
Won’t he be surprised when he finds out he’s been arrested, not for murder, but for making an obscene clone fall?
golf clap
The alien might be intelligent, but not conscious—as in, doesn’t have any sort of subjective experience whatsoever. Since morality is often based on the notion of suffering, or at least, of deprivation of pleasure, but the alien doesn’t have the capacity for either, what would the verdict then be? Is it OK to hurt something that doesn’t feel pain? Even murder it?
My personal opinion would have to include the amount of legs or tentacles. But if the bug eyed monster is actually expired, it gets taken for an autopsy, and then the feds show up and it never gets seen again, which is about the extent of it ever being seen by the supremes.
Polite enquiries by Rigellian battle cruisers , about their ambassador is someone else’s problem
This is an older (and funnier, IMHO) thread on the same topic. 
That’s why you buy the Sports Pac (formerly Sportsman pack). Then you get license and tags for just about everything.
There are severely damaged people who fit this description. Don’t they have rights?
Well, excuuuuuuuuse me! I spent almost an hour on a crowded bus tapping out that clone fall joke!
Suppose the killer simply thinks that it’s some strange and threatening animal, but authorities know otherwise either before or after the fact.
Or suppose the killer recognizes that it’s an alien, sees some gesture as frightening, and “stands his ground”.
Thinking about it, that’s an interesting story idea. Some place like Florida refuses to prosecute because the person at least claims to have been genuinely fearful and standing his or her ground, and because of this we’re faced with interplanetary war.
Everyone using State Fish and Game Laws seem to be ignoring the fact that I can kill mice and rats without license nor tag.
Xenomorph season! Predator season!
Sounds like it’d be a bad day for vermin!
https://appfiction.net/2016/05/27/a-bad-day-for-vermin-by-keith-laumer-read-time-10mins/
Correct. Many species can be killed without a license. The logic is revealing of the mindset of many posters: the thought that government allows you to do things, rather than prohibiting things.
Things that aren’t specifically illegal are legal. “Legal” is the default, not the other way around. And that’s the way it should be.
Law and Thee Multiverse, a blog by a lawyer who likes examining comic book situations from the perspective of real law, did a series on the topic. It’s not something that you can get a definite answer on because courts don’t issue definite rulings on arbitrary hypotheticals, but the gist of it is that aliens that were operating vehicles and otherwise acting intelligent would probably be considered in the same category as humans.
http://lawandthemultiverse.com/2011/01/12/non-human-intelligences-i-introduction/
http://lawandthemultiverse.com/2011/01/20/non-human-intelligences-ii-existing-law/
http://lawandthemultiverse.com/2011/02/02/non-human-intelligences-iii-categories/
1970 to 2016 is 46 years, 1930 to 1970 is 40 years, so if you would have called a silent film ‘very old’ in the 1970s I think it’s safe to call a 1970 movie ‘very old’ now. The first technicolor film was in 1935, and didn’t become popular until the 1950s, so if you would have called something from the black and white era ‘very old’ in the '90s, a 1970 film would be just as old now.