How Astrology Was Once Used in Court Trials

Astrology today is mostly vibes. It’s meme accounts, ChatGPT analyzing your birth chart, and people blaming Mercury retrograde for everything. And sure, some granola folks take it more seriously, but in general, astrology is seen as fun, personal, maybe a little spooky. But not something you’d take into, say… a court of law. Unless you were alive in literally any century before the 1800s.

Because for a long, weird stretch of history, astrology wasn’t just that weird video that pops up on your TikTok FYP at 2 AM, or something Katy Perry felt passionate about. It was a full-blown legal tool. People stood in courtrooms and made serious arguments about the position of Saturn. Judges hired astrologers. Birth charts were submitted as evidence.

Let me tell you, as a Gemini sun, moon & rising, I would be f’ed if I were born back then. Luckily, I wasn’t. But still, here’s the fun story of how astrology once had legal credibility.

Astrology Was Science, Actually

Let’s get this out of the way, in the ancient world, astrology was considered a legitimate science. Medicine, philosophy, politics, law — all of it had an astrological layer. You wanted to know what was wrong with someone? Check their chart. Planning a war? Check the stars. Choosing when to cut your hair? Check on the Moon.

This wasn’t just true in one place. Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Persia, India, and China all had deep, complex astrological systems. And by the time astrology hit medieval Europe? It was so embedded in intellectual life that university students literally had to learn it.

So if your first thought is “How could anyone believe this stuff in court?” — remember: they thought this was science. In the same way, we now argue over forensic evidence and DNA, people once argued over Mars being in the eighth house.

The Zodiac as Evidence

Let’s say it’s the year 1452. A guy named Paolo is accused of theft. He swears he didn’t do it. The judge asks for his birth chart and then checks the planetary alignments at the time of the crime. Why? Because certain signs were thought to indicate criminal tendencies.

In some European courts, especially in Italy and France, lawyers used astrology to prove that someone’s “temperament” made them more or less likely to commit a crime. Born under Scorpio rising? That’s suspicious. Mars in Aries in your third house? That could mean a violent nature. Venus in Libra? Too soft for a murder.

This wasn’t “fun fact” energy. This was actual evidence. Defense lawyers could (and did) bring in astrologers to testify that the accused had a naturally melancholic temperament, meaning, obviously, they wouldn’t have had the energy or aggression required to kill someone. Case closed.

Judges, Kings & Planetary Consultations

It wasn’t just the accused who got the astro-treatment. Judges consulted astrologers before hearing high-profile cases, especially if the trial involved nobles, land disputes, or anything vaguely scandalous.

And monarchs? Oh, they were obsessed. King Charles V of France reportedly consulted his royal astrologer before signing legal edicts. Queen Elizabeth I had court astrologers. So did Henry VIII (yes, even while he was collecting wives like cursed Pokémon cards).

The idea was that the stars weren’t just about personality, they were about timing. Picking the right day to execute a criminal? You’d better make sure the moon’s not void-of-course. Want a trial to go smoothly? Avoid Mercury retrograde.

Forensic Astrology

One of the strangest (and most terrifying) uses of astrology in court was in crime prediction. Some astrologers claimed they could pinpoint the exact time a crime occurred, and then match that chart with the suspect’s birth chart to determine guilt. This was called “interrogation astrology” or “horary astrology.”

A famous 16th-century example: astrologer Richard Harvey once claimed he could determine whether a thief was “innately criminal” just by looking at the exact minute they were caught. If Saturn was in a certain house at that time, it meant their soul was ruled by darkness. (Totally solid logic.)

This technique didn’t always work, obviously. But people believed in it. So much so that in some towns, astrologers were treated like detectives, called in to examine crime scenes and cast judgment based on moon phases and planetary rulers.

Medical Trials? Check the Moon First

Astrology was also used in medical court cases, especially in malpractice suits. Let’s say your neighbor’s cousin got bled by a shady barber-surgeon and died three days later. Was it the barber’s fault? Or was Mercury in retrograde?

Physicians would argue that a treatment was fine… based on the timing of it. If someone died during a bloodletting performed on a “bad moon,” the doctor might get off the hook. After all, you can’t fight fate. Some courts even had official guidelines that recommended performing certain procedures during specific astrological windows and punishing doctors who ignored them.

Witch Trials

Things took a darker turn during the rise of witch hunts in the 16th and 17th centuries. Astrology became part of the witch-hunting toolbox, sometimes used to accuse, sometimes to defend.

Astrologers would cast charts for the moment of a supposed demonic possession or “bewitching.” If the chart showed strong Saturn or malefic aspects, it was “proof” that the devil was involved. Even worse, some accused witches were matched with certain birth signs and told their astrology made them “susceptible to Satan.”

On the flip side, some clever defense lawyers tried to use astrology to prove innocence, saying their client’s birth chart made them too holy or pure for witchcraft. Unfortunately, most courts ignored that logic and just drowned you anyway.

The Fall

So what happened? Why aren’t we using Jupiter transits in modern legal cases? A few things killed courtroom astrology:

• The Scientific Revolution — By the 17th century, new scientific methods started replacing astrology with things like facts and proof.
• The Enlightenment — Suddenly, logic, evidence, and secularism were cool. The stars were out. Microscope slides were in.
• Legal Reform — Modern law moved toward standardized, secular codes. That meant no more “the defendant has Saturn in the 12th house, so we’ll let it slide.”

By the 1800s, astrology was seen as superstition. Courts stopped accepting it. Universities kicked it out. It went underground. But, it kind of came back? If you’re even remotely active on TikTok, you’ll probably know that now people have started using astrology to profile criminals, predict economic trends, or pick court dates that “feel lucky.”

And in the court of public opinion? Astrology’s thriving. People are dedicated to breaking down celebrity breakups and criminal scandals by birth chart. True crime podcasts casually mention a suspect’s sun sign. We still want cosmic order, even in the time of DNA evidence.