HUMAN DRAMA, ANIMAL TRIALS: WHAT THE MEDIEVAL ANIMAL TRIALS CAN TEACH US ABOUT JUSTICE FOR ANIMALS

HUMAN DRAMA, ANIMAL TRIALS: WHAT THE MEDIEVAL ANIMAL TRIALS CAN TEACH US ABOUT JUSTICE FOR ANIMALS By Katie Sykes* The legal system generally does little to protect animals, and one aspect of its inadequacy is a matter of formal structure: under United States and Ca- nadian law, animals are not legal “persons” with an independent right to the protections of the legal system. There are calls to expand the status of animals in the law by providing them with legal standing, the right to be represented by a lawyer, and other formal protections. But, in a way, some of this has happened before. There is a long history, primarily from the medieval and early modern periods, of animals being tried for offenses such as attacking humans and destroying crops. These animals were formally pros- ecuted in elaborate trials that included counsel to represent their interests. The history of the animal trials demonstrates how, in a human-created legal system, legal “rights” for animals can be used for human purposes that have little to do with the interests of the animals. This history shows us that formal legal rights for animals are only tools, rather than an end in them- selves, and highlights the importance not just of expanding formal protections, but of putting them to work with empathy, in a way that strives (despite the inevitable limitations of a human justice system in this respect) to incorporate the animals’ own interests and own point of view. I. INTRODUCTION: ANIMAL CLIENTS, HUMAN LAWYERS ............................................... 274 II. ANIMALS ON TRIAL ..................................... 280 III. JUSTICE AND TRAVESTIES THEREOF: ANIMAL TRIALS AND ANIMAL RIGHTS .......................... 288 IV. THE OUTCAST’S LAUGH: THE ANIMAL TRIALS IN LITERATURE AND DRAMA .............................. 297 V. MODERN TRIALS: DANGEROUS DOGS AND SALMON- LOVING SEA LIONS ..................................... 302 A. Dog “Trials” .......................................... 302 B. Environmental Conflicts ............................... 307 IV. A PROPOSAL BY WAY OF CONCLUSION ................. 297 * © Katie Sykes 2011. Katie Sykes is currently an LL.M. candidate at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University and will enter the first year of the J.S.D. pro- gram in September 2011. She holds a J.D. from the University of Toronto (2002) and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School (2004), and served as a clerk to Mr. Justice LeBel of the Supreme Court of Canada in 2003-2004. From 2004 to 2010, she was an associate with the New York firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. [273]

HUMAN DRAMA, ANIMAL TRIALS: WHAT THE MEDIEVAL ANIMAL TRIALS CAN TEACH US ABOUT JUSTICE FOR ANIMALS

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