Review
From the book jacket: Few can rival attorney Andy Carpenter's
affection for golden retrievers, especially his own beloved Tara. After he
astonishes a New Jersey courtroom by successfully appealing another golden's
death sentence, Andy discovers that this gentle dog is a key witness to a murder
that took place five years before.
Andy pushes the boundaries of the law even further as he struggles to free an
innocent man by convincing an incredulous jury to take canine testimony
seriously. It will take all the tricks Andy's fertile mind can conceive to get
to the bottom of a remarkable chain of impersonations and murder, and save a
dog's life—and his own—in the process.
Comment: David Rosenfelt's sixth legal thriller to feature lawyer Andy
Carpenter opens with Andy rescuing a 7-year-old golden retriever from the "death...
Beyond the Book
Animals on Trial
The idea of canine testimony being accepted in court is not without precedent
(e.g. drug smugglers who are convicted on the evidence of sniffer dogs), but
what about the idea of putting an animal itself on trial?
These days, animals are not tried on the basis
that they lack the ability to make moral judgments and therefore cannot be held
culpable for an act. However, this was not always so. Numerous
cases exist in history, many of them collected in
The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals written by
Edward Payson Evans in 1906
and reprinted in the 1980s. For example:
"In 1386, the tribunal of Falaise sentenced a sow
to be mangled and maimed in the head and forelegs, and then to...
