In the past, even animals could be criminals. They could be brought to court with a real lawyer and a judge. They could be sentenced to prison or executed.

Once in Lausanne, caterpillars were subpoenaed to court because they had eaten some plants in a garden. They didn’t show up. Then, the caterpillars were ordered to leave the town and were excommunicated.

Cats were executed especially often because they were considered to be doing the devil’s work. This lead to a significant decrease in the population of cats, so there were a lot of rodents that spread the plague across Europe, which was the real crime!