On Tue, 3 Jul 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
Can one call an animal as a witness?
Bloodhounds were for a long time considered admissible in cases involving scent tracking, and may still be in some jurisdictions -- but I don't know whether they counted as "witnesses" or "evidence". Note that courtroom procedure calls for witnesses to be sworn in, and unless someone could convince a judge that the animal understood the concept of an oath and what was being sworn, that could probably be used to disqualify any animal "witness". Other than that though, the question is not interesting except in the case of language-using animals -- presently limited to apes and chimps trained to use sign language, and a few african Gray Parrots that seem to use speech in a symbolic rather than mimicking way. (Possibly also Dolphins and Orcas, but we're not sure yet and translation efforts have yielded limited results at best.) I've never heard of anyone attempting to call a language-using animal as a witness. When it happens, there will probably be a ruling. Bear