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Make the Dog Testify
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A specific Unconventional Courtroom Tactic. An animal is called to the stand to testify. It seems that in fictional courts, there is no rule against that. Even though most all animals cannot speak any human language, the lawyer will still find a way to prove a crucial point from the animal's behaviour. As the page image and the name imply, the two most common animals by far to get hit with this trope are dogs and parrots, although there are plenty of other animals that have been seen in the witness stand in fictionland as well. Not related to Tropey the Wonder Dog in any way. Compare Polly Wants a Microphone. Certain instances of Not in Front of the Parrot! might lead to this. See also This Bear Was Framed. |
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In the sixth mission of Hitman: Blood Money, "You Better Watch Out...", one target's dog, which normally follows him around his suite (if not taken care of), will be listed as a witness if it sees you make the hit. This means it somehow gives police a better composite sketch... | |
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A close variant in Maria the Virgin Witch. While visiting a town, Maria passes through a square where a boar is being tried for murder, having apparently killed a child. It's clearly intended to be a Kangaroo Court, and when they return later, the boar is hanging from a gallows. | |
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Ace Ventura: The Animated Series: In a similar case, somebody abducts a dog hoping to make it reveal the secrets of its master, a high-ranking officer. All the machine that reads the dog's mind catches is the dog playing with the officer. Ace points out to the villain that dogs don't care about military secrets. Another episode has Ace's monkey, Spike, signaling that he saw a beast steal a hunting dog, but Ace thought Spike was letting superstition go to his head and pretended that Spike only said that in hopes of getting a cookie. When asked about what made Spike change his statement, Ace said he gave Spike two cookies. |
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The sixth season of Dexter has a vigilante justice variation: this is how Dexter finds out that Leon, and not the gang's no. 2, was responsible for Brother Sam's death. The dog didn't bark at the assailant, as seen on the security footage. The dog normally barks at everybody. Of course, since he kills Leon by drowning him in the ocean, it may count as Character Development. | |
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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: In "McPoyle vs. Ponderosa: The Trial of the Century", Charlie, in an effort to prove that Bill Ponderosa is not responsible for Liam McPoyle's missing eyeball, forces the McPoyle family bird to take the witness stand. In a twist, it's with the intention of proving the animal to be the real culprit, as it apparently has a history of mutilating its owners. Charlie's attempts to force it to confess (despite it not even being a talking variety of bird) obviously fail, but it does wind up generating enough reasonable doubt to get the case thrown out when it attacks the plaintiff's attorney and gouges out his eye, too. | |
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The Simpsons: In "Stop or My Dog Will Shoot", Snake winds up being freed on a technicality due to improperly filed paperwork. This was because said paperwork was filed by the police dog responsible for his capture, Santa's Little Helper, and consists of paw print markings on an official form. Also in "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" (Part 2), the police begin to interrogating two witnesses to the shooting. Problem is that the two who saw the crime were Santa's Little Helper and Maggie, which they even lampshaded the fact that they're not talking. |
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In The Dogs of Babel, a man goes through extreme (surgical) means to get his dog to speak as it was the only witness to his wife's death. It never mentions a court, though. Actually, the man doesn't go through with the surgical procedure on his dog, but instead researches (to a near ridiculous extent) another man who surgically altered his dog. Not wanting to go quite to this extreme, he looks into other methods to teach his dog to talk. |
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In Grand Theft Auto V, NPCs witnessing a crime committed by the player is what triggers a police response. Confusingly, players firing a gun while out alone in the wilderness will find themselves getting a Wanted level. Dataminers eventually discovered that the game's animals can "call" the police. | |
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The justice system in Liberal Crime Squad doesn't bother with trial competency. Even when animal rights are at their lowest, dogs and genetic monsters caught in the act will be criminalized as humans, rather than, say, get sent to the pound. | |
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In the Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer Christmas special, the main character, Jake calls Santa's (talking) Reindeer to the stand. At one point he also insists that his dog bring a piece of surprise evidence into the trial for no discernible reason. | |
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Eli Stone has a gay chimp on the stand. Yes. Really. | |
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In Arrested Development, Michael calls his brother GOB's puppet Franklin on the stand, then reveals that inside the puppet is a tape recording he made of the prosecuting attorney offering him a deal, which results in a mistrial. In a token gesture towards realism the puppet was actually on the witness list because of GOB's efforts. It also helped that it was a mock trial with Judge Reinhold as the judge. | |
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The Dresden Files: Harry Dresden's dog actually could, and did, testify at the end of Turn Coat. And his testimony was accepted. It helps that he's a "Temple Dog" — a magical scion of a mortal canine and a Foo dog that can detect evil and is as intelligent as a human. The court was also made up of wizards who could verify that Mouse was as intelligent as he was claimed to be. | |
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Discworld: Vetinari's dog Wuffles in The Truth is viewed as a potential witness. It helps that the City Watch has a werewolf on duty to translate. There is also a reference to a parrot being in witness protection, living life as a large budgerigar. According to Mr. Slant, a zombie lawyer who's over 300 years old and therefore knows most of the city's legal history, other animals have been put on trial as actual defendants. Including a swarm of bees! That's Ankh-Morpork for you.note This can actually happen in real life, at least in the US, though it's a bit different than what you're probably imagining ... it's mainly a shorthand form of "v. John Doe, an unidentified owner of (thing)". |
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Judge Dee: In The Chinese Bell Murders, the judge uses inanimate objects to testify: Having found well-brushed straw mats in a suspect's home, he has them vigorously beaten over a clean sheet. This causes a small amount of salt to fall out, giving the judge cause to arrest the man for smuggling salt (as part of a Confess to a Lesser Crime gambit that leads to the otherwise untouchable criminal's execution). | |
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Matlock: Matlock uses a victim's dog to prove the "witness" beat the dog within an inch of its life while committing the crime of which his client was accused of (as the dog went ballistic at the sight of the witness). He then shows the fallacy of the trope afterwards by revealing that the dog was a trained attack dog, and that it just goes ballistic. | |
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Not a courtroom, but as Guitierrez is trying to replicate the incident that created Freakazoid!, the hero's alter-ego Dexter explains that the keyboard sequence was created by his cat walking on it. Then it's shown the mooks had captured the cat to interrogate him. An animal psychologist had even been brought to help, but all he could get out of the cat was "He says he's very sad." | |
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In Assist Me, Amaterasu (played by a male Pomeranian) speaks out against Doctor Doom in court for eating her treats. | |
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An odd case in the Homestuck Alternate Universe Fic Loophole. In this setting, although trolls are still nonhumans with human-level intelligence,note in canon, they'd probably argue that they're smarter than humans, but in this AU that's not shown, their legal and social status is somewhere between "pet" and "dangerous wild animal". So when Vriska is called up to the stand to testify about being used in a fighting ring, there's a bit of a kerfuffle. | |
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On an episode of Columbo, the murder victim's dog helped prove that the murderer had been to the victim's house by scratching his car door. Fortunately the dog had left unique scratch marks because it was missing a claw. | |
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Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney sees the triumphant return of this trope. Worth noting that it wasn't Phoenix's idea this time, it was a witness's. At least this time he had someone who Speaks Fluent Animal to help the parrot understand what the question is. | |
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In The Order of the Stick, Blackwing (a raven) is called as a character witness in a trial. Blackwing actually can speak, but at this point in the story, he doesn't speak Common in V's presence. A demon cockroach (who can and does talk) is a witness as well. | |
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In a since-removed bug in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the player could get arrested by the town guards if a horse or chicken saw the deed. Even if it is your own horse. Apparently, guards appreciate testimony straight from the horse's mouth. | |
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In the world of Xanth where Mix-and-Match Critters and sentient animals are the norm rather than the exception, even its inhabitants think the justice system is going too far when Roxanne Roc is brought to trial for cursing within the "hearing" range of the Simurgh's (as yet unhatched) chick, and she is induced to testify against herself. As it turns out, it was a Secret Test of Character over whether the people of Xanth would choose To Be Lawful or Good. The Demon Xanth, who rules Xanth and gives it magic powers, bet "Lawful", whereas another demon bet "Good". | |
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The cats from "Pluto's Judgement Day". Curiously enough, the defendant is Pluto, a dog. | |
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Played with in the Perry Mason television episode "The Case of the Perjured Parrot." The title bird (voiced by Mel Blanc) was found alongside its owner's body, saying one phrase over and over — and while not technically called to the stand, it was introduced in evidence. Perry does "cross examine" the parrot and proves this bird was a look-alike substitute for the murder victim's pet. Somewhat justified in that it was only an inquest rather than an actual criminal trial. Also counts as an Invoked Trope, as the parrot was trained to say that phrase in order to frame a family member. The substitution was proven because the bird didn't know some phrases the murder victim's pet did, and wouldn't do the finger mounting trick the murder victim's pet knew how to do. | |
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In the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street, the prosecution brings in a reindeer as a "witness," challenging Mr. Kringle to make it fly. Kringle admits that he can't—"he only flies on Christmas Eve!" Cue laughter. | |
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A bug in Dwarf Fortress (now patched) merits an honorable mention. When vampires were introduced, they added a game mechanic in which dwarves would accuse each other of attacking and draining the blood from a dwarf who'd just been found dead, and the player would then have to try to determine which dwarf was truly responsible. Thanks to an unfortunate oversight, literally anyone in the room at the time the murder was committed could end up being accused of being the culprit, including babies and livestock. With the addition of criminal conspiracies in v0.47 and updates to the justice system to include an interrogation mechanic, the bug is back, letting you order animals to be interrogated by the fortress's law enforcement. |
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Cheerfully subverted but referenced in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice, in which the trope is used by name, when the Judge asks if Phoenix is going to make Ahlbi's dog testify. Phoenix hurriedly says this wasn't his intent... (this time). | |
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In Twin Peaks, Waldo the mynah bird, the pet of a key suspect in the central murder investigation, was taken into police custody for this exact reason. He was assassinated by another suspect to prevent this from happening, although ultimately, nothing the bird saw could have lead to the real killer. | |
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In the first Air Bud movie, Buddy is brought into the courtroom during the trial determining who owns him. The judge is notably not pleased with this, but reluctantly allows it so long as Buddy sits quietly and behaves himself. Buddy proceeds to bark every time the judge uses his gavel. Eventually, the judge gets so fed up with the case that he accepts Arthur Chaney's suggestion to allow Buddy to choose which owner he preferred. | |
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On The Ricky Gervais Show, resident Cloudcuckoolander Karl Pilkington tells a story, where a homicide in an office was supposedly solved by putting the suspects in the same room as a houseplant from the scene of the crime. The houseplant supposedly "reacted" to the murderer's presence. | |
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Star Trek: In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", Kirk uses some tribbles to identify the Klingon infiltrator. Not an example in a court, but it does lead to an (offscreen) trial after the end of the episode. The Tribbles are really acting as an Evil-Detecting Dog, so they probably weren't needed. In one episode of Star Trek: Voyager, Tuvok uses a dog as a rebuttal witness in defense of Tom Paris (successfully, it should be noted). |
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The talking "dictabird" in The Flintstones is treated as a powerful witness against the Corrupt Corporate Executive villain. The villain dies a Karmic Death rather than ever making it to trial, but apparently there is no reason why the bird couldn't have testified. (Something of a deconstruction of the ways that similar animal-tools are treated on the cartoon, in which a talking dinosaur will make some joke about its situation, but having all these talking animals around never becomes a plot point, nor is there really any communication going on between the human characters and the animals they use.) | |
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Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Played for laughs in a Show Within a Show, where Sarah Marshall plays an animal psychic detective. | |
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Hooperman used the variant where the defendant shouts in court, "I should have killed the dog, too!" — thus proving his own guilt. | |
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Law & Order: Jack McCoy has also brought a dog into a courtroom in "Who Let The Dogs Out?". The dog's owners are accused of manslaughter by recklessness because the dog mauled a woman to death, and their defense is that the dog is usually gentle and well-behaved, so they couldn't have anticipated his actions. In response, McCoy has the dog brought in (on a muzzle, completely under the control of animal experts) to prove the dog is clearly aggressive by nature and that keeping it made them responsible for the people it killed. The Judge does call McCoy on it and forces McCoy to make a plea deal or he will declare a mistrial (McCoy agrees on the condition that the defendants accept a two-year minimum sentence; they try to protest, but the judge then pushes them to take it.) | |
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Played for laughs in Doctor Dolittle. The authorities are questioning whether the Doctor is sane and can really talk to animals. One of Dr. Dolittle's moves is to put the judge's dog on the stand! (Did the judge have five or six pieces of pie?) | |
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By Dual Destinies, when he calls the aforementioned robot to the stand, Edgeworth's response basically amounts to "Why not? You've called just about everything else." | |
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The bees from Bee Movie. They can actually talk, but the court had apparently not stopped to confirm that beforehand. When Barry is called to make his opening statements he starts by just making buzzing sounds as a joke. | |
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The trope image comes from Case 1-4 in the first game, where Phoenix calls a witness's pet parrot to the stand after it is suggested as a joke, in hopes of using things the parrot was trained to say in order to make the case that the parrot's owner was involved in the DL-6 incident. Despite the entire court being utterly bewildered by the move (and the prosecutor having actually planned for Phoenix to be that desperate, and so retraining the parrot the previous night to not say the most damning phrase, "don't forget DL-6"), the parrot's testimony does manage to turn the case right around. | |
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In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", Kirk uses some tribbles to identify the Klingon infiltrator. Not an example in a court, but it does lead to an (offscreen) trial after the end of the episode. The Tribbles are really acting as an Evil-Detecting Dog, so they probably weren't needed. | |
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In the Murder, She Wrote episode "It's a Dog's Life", a dog is trained by a murderer to press a button on command, causing someone to be crushed to death by a security gate. After it's brought into court to show how it committed the act, it goes over to the murderer, proving that he was the one who trained it. | |
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In an episode of Rugrats, Angelica sues her parents over making her eat broccoli. Her witness? A stuffed animal. The defense objects, but the judge lets the toy testify anyway. It was All Just a Dream, of course. | |
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In Bingo, the title circus dog is called as a witness in a trial. His testimony causes an argument from the defense over whether a "dog point" legally counted as indicating the accused. | |
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Taken to another level in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Plankton vs. Krabs", in which Plankton sues for damages (and the Krabby Patty secret formula) after slipping at the Krusty Krab. At one point SpongeBob, as Krabs' lawyer, cross-examines a mop. "So it was you that made the floor slippery?" | |
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In The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, a dog called as a witness saves an innocent man from a murder charge, thanks to the doctor's ability to understand Animal Talk, which allows him to serve as an interpreter. First though the doctor proves he can speak to animals by interrogating the judge's dog about what was the judge doing last evening (a testimony the judge hastily interrupts, embarrassed.) | |
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The Hour of the Pig: During the climactic court procedure, a pig is offered the chance to confess to killing a boy by squealing twice, and gets jabbed from behind to cause it to make such sounds. | |
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JAG: In the Season 5 episode "Front and Center", Colonel Sarah MacKenzie is defending a crewman on drug charges found on him by an old drug-sniffing dog, the client claims it was just a potent breed of oregano not marijuana. As the dog is the only reason for the charges, as the handler's testing equipment wasn't working and they destroyed the product already, Mac requests the dog verify his abilities to the court. She has ten identical bags filled by an outside independent lab, nine with the oregano the client claims to have had and one with the marijuana. The judge was skeptical, but Mac notes that these odds are in the dog's favor as normally the dog must sniff something out in a crowded airport with hundreds of bags in movement. It is permitted and the old dog fails the test by selecting an oregano-filled bag. The case is dismissed and client freed. | |
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One of This American Life's annual poultry-themed episodes featured the story of a lawyer who wanted to force a psychiatrist to play Tic-Tac-Toe against a chicken in court. She was representing a mentally ill and retarded man on death row, and the prosecution was using this psychiatrist's testimony of having been beaten by him at tic-tac-toe as evidence that he was mentally competent enough to be executed. She remembered that as a kid she'd seen tic-tac-toe-playing chickens at fairs and decided to try to get permission to bring in such a chicken to prove a point about the level of intelligence required to best the psychiatrist. In her words, "Who can doubt a chicken? You can't. A chicken isn't going to lie. Chickens have integrity." | |
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Youngblood: Judgment Day: Toby "Skipper" King eventually calls to the stand Giganthro, a member of the time-travelling League of Infinity. Giganthro is a mutated caveman incapable of speaking any modern human language, though he understands well enough. Thankfully, team leader Zayla Zarn provides translation for his testimony. | |
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In Road Rovers, this was the basis of an entire episode. Of course, they had phlebotinum that could make a dog into a sapient humanoid. | |
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In The Curse of Chalion, an animal is used to reveal the Gods' judgement. To determine the truth of an accusation against a character, a sacred crow of the Bastard is brought in and told to fly to the truthful party. The crow in question is one that Cazaril had fed and tried to teach to say his name, and which the Gods deliberately sent to be the person making the selection. | |
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Ace Attorney: The trope image comes from Case 1-4 in the first game, where Phoenix calls a witness's pet parrot to the stand after it is suggested as a joke, in hopes of using things the parrot was trained to say in order to make the case that the parrot's owner was involved in the DL-6 incident. Despite the entire court being utterly bewildered by the move (and the prosecutor having actually planned for Phoenix to be that desperate, and so retraining the parrot the previous night to not say the most damning phrase, "don't forget DL-6"), the parrot's testimony does manage to turn the case right around. In Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Phoenix Wright is able to "cross-examine" and prove the guilt of Amaterasu (a wolf, though one who's the physical incarnation of a sun goddess) and Rocket Raccoon (a raccoon, albeit a talking alien raccoon). In the DLC case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, he defends an orca. After the orca's trainer Sasha becomes the suspect, Phoenix later cross-examines the orca for trying to get a connection to both the current case and the events one year earlier. It goes as well as you'd expect. Sasha says she came to Phoenix for help specifically because she had heard about the parrot incident above — she took the fact that he called a parrot as a witness to mean that he'd be the only lawyer willing to go out on a limb and take up an animal's defense. Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney sees the triumphant return of this trope. Worth noting that it wasn't Phoenix's idea this time, it was a witness's. At least this time he had someone who Speaks Fluent Animal to help the parrot understand what the question is. Cheerfully subverted but referenced in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice, in which the trope is used by name, when the Judge asks if Phoenix is going to make Ahlbi's dog testify. Phoenix hurriedly says this wasn't his intent... (this time). To date, the canon games have allowed Phoenix to cross-examine a parrot, a puppet, a two-way-radio, two ghosts, a whale, and a robot. Only 4 of the above were aware they were being cross-examined. By Dual Destinies, when he calls the aforementioned robot to the stand, Edgeworth's response basically amounts to "Why not? You've called just about everything else." |
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Paperinik New Adventures: In one of Angus' short stories, a Funny Background Event involves a lawyer telling a crook that a goldfish is going to testify, with the crook admitting he'd tried to kill it... by drowning. | |
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In one episode of Star Trek: Voyager, Tuvok uses a dog as a rebuttal witness in defense of Tom Paris (successfully, it should be noted). | |
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In Disorder in the Court, a parrot's courtroom "find the letter!" solves the crime. Especially since the letter's tied around the parrot's foot. | |
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MacGyver (1985): In "Rush to Judgement", Mac arranges to put a parakeet on the stand, with the elderly women who owned it acting as interpreter. In reality, the woman was the one who had witnessed the crime, but was too nervous to testify without using the bird as an intermediary. | |
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