Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.The Law: Just Like Old Times
In medieval days any dog, hog, horse, donkey, mouse, rat, beetle or swarm of flies charged with a crime could get a fair trial—complete with sharp-tongued defense attorney and a day before the bench. When a sow was hanged for devouring its young, a dog executed for biting children, or a rat pack or fly swarm ordered exterminated, there was no question about it: the whole legal system of the 15th century was in there pitching all the way.
It has been just like old times in Virginia, where a young lawyer recently went all the way to the U.S....
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