Deodand is a medieval legal term. It's now defunct but outbreaks of deodand-ism persist. The famous case, I think Elaine Scarry writes about it, is the one of the US soldiers shooting a tree for injuring one of their colleagues.
Then there was the case of the train, one of the first trains, that killed the mayor of the southern English town in which it was first run. The townspeople tried the train and whipped it, as punishment, if memory serves.
On Twitter I've been discussing how animals such as polar bears (Norway) and sharks (Seychelles, here) are singled out for special punishment if they injure humans.
Is there not some object-oriented way of thinking about bare life buried in this phenomenon? Deodand means given to God—objectum sacrum? Like homo sacer?