This is the memory palace. I'm Nate DeMoeu.

The defendant was led into the courtroom on a rope. He was met with laughter, even from

the jury. He was charged with vagrancy and larceny, highway robbery and disturbing the

peace, and the judge informed the jurors that though the death penalty was typically reserved

for murder and treason, the various crimes of which the defendant was accused were so serious.

Her harm was so dreadful. If he was guilty, he would be executed.

The defendant didn't follow any of this. He didn't speak the language. He had no understanding

of the fate that awaited. Also he was a bull. He was a male cow, so that's why. I could

have teased it out some more and played with your expectations a bit longer, but at some

point that would get kind of hacky. Not to mention confusing. When I told you as I will

now that the judge informed the jury that after being executed, the defendant would be

eaten. And at that point it would be kind of disrespectful both to you, the listener,

into the bull. Because his life was indeed at stake, there in a makeshift courtroom in

a ballpark in Wayne's Borough, Pennsylvania in September of 1924. It went of likely hundreds

of trials conducted during the 1920s and 30s in so-called courts of bovine justice. Officials

at the U.S. Department of Agriculture wanted to encourage dairy farmers and cattle ranchers

to purchase purebred, petegried bulls. With the goal of eventually eradicating all so-called

scrub bulls, basically the muts of the bovine world. The belief was that purebred bulls

produced heirs that produce more milk, or had bigger, more delicious bodies. And so

they came up with the idea of holding literal show trials and farming and ranching communities

around the country, in which a single scrub bull would be charged with grievous crimes,

namely that being a less than maximally profitable food product or breeding machine was tantamount

...