For the legally-minded...

[jackson_m_pongo]

In a German trial against a bear in 1499, the defending counsel objected that his client could be sentenced only by a jury of his peers, but the judge did not permit the recruitment of twelve other bears as jurors. The defense had as little success in a trial against the field voles that took place in the Tyrol in 1519, in which the rodents were sentenced to eternal banishment from the territory in question. The only leniency achieved by their counsel was that the expected mass migration of voles should be granted safe conduct from cats and dogs and that, in the name of humanity, pregnant females and their young were to be given 2 extra weeks to prepare their move.

-from "The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History" by Jan Bondeson