Yes, Animals and Insects Have Stood Trial in Court

It was an otherwise ordinary day in 1386 when the citizens of Falaise, a town in Normandy, France, gathered to see justice visited upon a sow. The defendant was duly convicted of murder in a court of law for mauling a baby who died from the wounds. The pig was sentenced to be hanged in the town square. But before being strung up, in keeping with the Old Testament policy of “an eye for an eye,” the pig was made to suffer the same wounds it inflicted on the child: Its face was lac