Animals were put on trial in medieval times and routinely sentenced to death.

Throughout the middle-ages in Europe animals were, as it turns out, tried for human crimes. Animals were arraigned in court on charges ranging from murder to obscenity.

Pigs, dogs, cows, rats and even flies and caterpillars were arraigned in court with full ceremony. They would call witnesses and evidence were heard on both sides. They would grant a form of legal aid, a lawyer to the animal that was accused in order to conduct the animal's defense.

As it's said in Edward Payson Evans's book The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animalsin 1266 a pig was accused of actually eating a human being. After a trial that was held the pig was found guilty and sentenced – by the monks of Sainte Genevieve – to a death by public burning.