Animal trial
In legal history, an animal trial was the criminal trial of a non-human animal. Such trials are recorded as having taken place in Europe from the thirteenth century until the eighteenth. In modern times, it is considered in most criminal justice systems that non-human animals lack moral agency and so cannot be held culpable for an act. Historical animal trials Animals, including insects, faced the possibility of criminal charges for several centuries across many parts of Europe. The earliest extant record of an animal trial is often assumed to be found in the execution of a pig in 1266 at Fontenay-aux-Roses. Newer research, however, suggests that this reading might be mistaken and no trial took place in that particular incident. Notwithstanding this controversy, such trials remained part of several legal systems until the 18th century. Animal defendants appeared before both church and secular courts, and the offences alleged against them ranged from murder to criminal damage. Human witnesses were often heard, and in ecclesiastical courts the animals were routinely provided with lawyers (this was not the case in secular courts, but for most of the period concerned, neither were human defendants). If convicted, it was usual for an animal to