and its scriptwriters evidently consulted actual trial transcripts, though the plot revolves around a historical conceit – Colin Firth plays the pig's defence lawyer, but there is no recorded instance of a lawyer representing an animal charged with murder. (There are several cases, by contrast, where lawyers appeared for creatures in ecclesiastical courts – and several rats and beetles, for example, won famous court victories as a result.) In Olga Tokarczuk's 2009 novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, the main protagonist writes to police using historical examples of animal trials to justify her theory that animals are responsible for recent local murders. The 2013 visual novel adventure video game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies offers an additional court case as downloadable content, where the protagonist defends an orca accused of murder. See also Cadaver Synod Damnatio ad bestias Topsy (elephant) Mary (elephant) Tyke (elephant) Notes References . . External links The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals (1906) at the Internet Archive , Society and Animals, Volume 2, Number 1 (1994) (2003) Nicholas Humphrey, , Chapter 18 of The Mind Made Flesh, pp. 235–254, Oxford University Press (2002) Animals on Trial (MP3), BBC World Service documentary podcast, broadcast on 15 March 2011 Bugs and Beast Before the Law in The Public Domain Review Animal law History of criminal justice Types of trials