8 Weird Questions That Courts Have Legally Answered

There's an inevitable aftermath of every Scooby-Doo episode that we never get to see, and that's the villain going on trial after his arrest - obviously you can't just impersonate a ghost pirate or the Mummy of Ankha and get off with a warning. But as soon as Scooby was called to the witness stand, the presiding judge in The People v. Witch Doctor would have a very weird decision to make: is a talking animal's testimony even admissible?

As it turns out, one judge had to make that call in real life.

During the 1993 murder trial of Gary Joseph Rasp, the defense moved to enter into evidence testimony from the victim's African gray parrot, Max. They claimed that Max had been present for the murder and was later heard yelling, "Richard, no, no, no!" That wasn't the defendant's name, so they claimed this proved he hadn't committed the murder.

You might expect an Air Bud-like moment where somebody points out that the rulebook doesn't say the witness has to be human, but the real world is boring, so the judge blocked the attempt to enter Max's testimony into evidence.

Verdict: Talking animals can't testify because real life is not a cartoon.