Animal Wrongs

[Worldlife]

With threads concerning hanging of greyhounds, the execution of police dogs without trial and animal rights in general I decided it was time to look up justice for animals!

In 1386 a trial was held in Falaise on account of a child who had been injured in the face and arms. The accused, wearing a waistcoat, breeches, and white gloves, was sentenced to being mangled and maimed in the head and arms before being garroted and hanged at the village scaffold. The torture and punishment in itself is not so odd, considering the year; the peculiarity of the case is that the accused was a pig, in the literal sense of the term.

In 1926, a stray German Shepherd in Kentucky was charged with the attempted murder of a small child; it was sentenced to death and executed in the electric chair.

In 1991, an Argentinean dog killed a child and was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment.

from "Animal Wrongs"

Reading further into this website one encounters religious discussion - extremely popular on "The Scream!" too!

Another difficulty with the explanation of financial punishment is provided by the work Margaliyos Hayam (to Tractate Sanhedrin). He notes that the ox is not merely put to death; it actually undergoes a trial, in the presence of twenty-three judges of the Sanhedrin, and a sentencing procedure. Furthermore, its body may not be eaten; if its execution was a financial punishment, one would expect that the flesh would be given to the victim's family, or at least to the public or Beth Din coffers. The entire procedure seems extremely similar to a human trial.

The Margaliyos Hayam therefore proposes a novel explanation. He states that a murderous animal houses the reincarnated spirit of a person. Thus, it is really the human spirit inside the animal that is being punished, rather than an ordinary animal.

[squidgy]

Well, I must say that's kinda sweet in a bizarre way ...