mals and immimarc things are tried onK’ if the\’ killed. Xo donht for a lesser iniur\’ a dangerous beast would simply he put down. 'I'his limitation was because of the seriousness of killing not simph’ hecause of i]uestions of jurisdiction and this also is indicated h\’ Plato in his discussion of ideal laws. He lavs down a procedure for tr\ ing an animal that commits homicide, and another for an inanimate object that kills.I le establishes no procedure for prosecuting aninulls that simph’ wound. 2. In hook 1 of his Commcutiincs ou the Ldves of Ijighiiul William Blackstone treats the forfeiture of animals and inanimate objects that kill.^’ 1 lis discussion makes it \ er\’ clear that he is puzzled hv the forfeitured'’ \\hich prohahh should he regarded as a sur\ i\al from a pre\ ions age. Distinctions are drawn in true legal fashion, 'riius, if an infant under the \ears of discretion falls from a stationar\’ cart and is killed the thing is not forfeit, hut it is if the person killed is an adult. It a man climbing on a wheel falls and is killed, the wheel alone is forfeit, hut if a wheel ran oxer him and killed him the whole cart and its load are forfeit. Whether or not the object w as under the control of its ow ner is irrelex ant for its forfeiture. What must again be stressed is that the procedure is reserxed for killing, and is not e.xtended to xxounding, an indication that the procedure is to be seen as a last resort. 3. 'I'rials of animals xxere not uncommon in the past in ICurope. One jxarticular example xx ill suffice. In ic22 rats xvere put on trial in .Vutun before the ecclesiastical court for the felonx' of eating and xxantonix’ destrox ing barlex crops. A formal complaint xvas laid betore the bishop's x icar xx ho cited "some rats" to appear on a certain dax’. Barthehnx C'hassenee xvas ajxpointed for the defense, fhe rats Laws 9:873E. 45 1.8.15. 46 Cf. already Ewald 'Comparative Jurisprudence (1),' pp. i9ioff 143
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