Not Guilty

Can't for the life of me figure out how I got finagled into serving on that jury. There I was, minding my own business. Hunting, I was. Which is what you do to keep the pride up. And bang! I got the summons.

Ok, so I had to go. Turns out it was young George. He's one of those young males who hang around on the fringes, hoping to get a pride of their own, but not being quite up to standards, you might say.

So anyway, George was accused of killing this young buck. Story is, he spots this buck wandering alone and starts stalking him. But this is where it gets interesting. When the buck sees George coming through the grass, he doesn't run. Instead, he gets all feisty and starts kicking and butting and goring. Now, this is an almost full-grown buck, so he's capable of doing some damage. In the end, George rips his throat out, but this is the fuzzy, controversial bit: Who was the aggressor, and who was getting the worst of the fight? Up to the point George ripped the guys throat out, of course.

It was up to me and five other ladies to decide. All of us would rather have been out hunting for our prides and minding our cubs and that, but it was up to us. And let me tell you, it wasn't an easy decision. At first, we were evenly divided between "guilty" and "not guilty."

But here's the thing. Judge Nala was presiding, and she's the expert on the Law of the Jungle, and she gave us our instructions. Here's how she explained it. The key point of the law, and the only thing we could consider, was this: Was George afraid of that antelope before he mauled it? So we thought about those pointy horns and sharp hooves, and we really didn't have any choice, did we? If we went against the law, all we would have was vigilante justice.