You thought it was over, but you never ever bet against a sequel: Return To The Lawsuit Of The Apes.
It appeared as though the courts had finally dispensed with the novel “animal autonomy” legal theory — the one that suggested that chimpanzees can access habeas corpus to challenge unlawful detention — when the New York Court of Appeals unceremoniously affirmed a lower court’s decision denying Tommy the Chimp’s claim. Tommy, a 26-year-old chimp locked in a dark shed in upstate New York, had some help in seeking his writ of habeas corpus from the Nonhuman Rights Project. Key to their argument was the claim that Tommy’s captivity wasn’t a matter of cruelty — though it was (and is) probably that — because existing animal cruelty laws could only ever move Tommy to a nicer cage. The Nonhuman Rights Project wanted the courts to determine that Tommy was unlawfully detained so he could be set free and move to Florida like elderly humans. The Court of Appeals responded by throwing feces all over that argument.
But we all forgot about the pair of research chimps, Hercules and Leo, who also sued for personhood at the same time as Tommy. The chimps, residing in a lab at Stony Brook University, secured a small victory yesterday when New York Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe ordered Stony Brook University to send a representative to court to respond to the chimps’ unlawful detention claims.
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That may not sound like much of a victory, but the folks arguing on behalf of the chimps are jumping up and down and throwing bananas at each other:
“This is a big step forward to getting what we are ultimately seeking: the right to bodily liberty for chimpanzees and other cognitively complex animals,” says Natalie Prosin, the Executive Director of the animal rights organization, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), which filed the case. “We got our foot in the door. And no matter what happens, that door can never be completely shut again.”
“Never be completely shut again”? These folks are banking a whole hell of lot on the idea that merely ordering the school to come in and respond implicitly recognized chimpanzee rights. That doesn’t actually sound right. Sure, theoretically, the court could have dismissed the claim out of hand and never required the school to say anything more than, “you know we’re talking about f**king monkeys, right?” So, yeah, this is a bit out of the ordinary. But let’s not make the mistake of forgetting that there are plenty of reasons why Justice Jaffe might order the school to respond to the allegations about the chimps’ treatment without implicitly granting the animals new rights.
For example, as the Court of Appeals pushed at oral argument, animal cruelty might be implicated in these cases and Justice Jaffe may want to write an opinion blasting the Nonhuman Rights Project for pushing a wild theory when limited relief based on existing animal cruelty statues is otherwise available to Hercules and Leo.
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Or she may just want to be thorough. She’s doesn’t really need a reason to boss around Stony Brook. She’s a trial court judge — welcome to her world.
But until we get some clarification out of Justice Jaffe, the Nonhuman Rights Project is going to make a mountain out of this probable molehill:
Prosin says that even if NhRP loses the case, it will use the habeas corpus ruling to sway judges in other jurisdictions. “It strengthens our argument that these nonhuman animals are not property,” she says. The group plans to file another case—this one involving a captive elephant—by the end of the year, and has set its sights on other animals, including research animals, across the country.
Good luck with all that. I’m sure all those judges around the country will tremble before the “another state judge asked the other side to respond” argument.
(The full order is available on the next page…)
Judge’s ruling grants legal right to research chimps [Science]
Earlier: Lawsuit Of The Apes
Appeals Court Hears Chimpanzee Rights Case