Court to Decide if Chimps Are 'Legal Persons'

Stony Brook University will need to make its case in court next month as to why two chimpanzees in its care should remain on Long Island instead of a sanctuary in Florida.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe issued an ”order to show cause” on Monday in response to a petition by an animal rights group who claim the male chimps, Hercules and Leo, are being “unlawfully detained.”

Jaffe initially included in the words “writ of habeas corpus” in her order, which caused the group that filed the lawsuit, the Nonhuman Rights Project, to initially issue a press release with the headline, “First Time in World History Judge Recognizes Two Chimpanzees as Legal Persons.”

A writ of habeas corpus is generally used to bring a prisoner before the court to determine if the person’s imprisonment or detention is lawful. The celebration by animal rights supporters turned out to be a bit premature, however, as Jaffe later crossed out the words “writ of habeas corpus,” with a court spokesman clarifying that the order simply was meant to “allow the parties to argue their case in court.”

Before Jaffe amended her order, legal experts had already expressed skepticism that the judge meant to decide a major crux in the case before an official hearing.

“It would be quite surprising if the judge intended to make a momentous substantive finding that chimpanzees are legal persons if the judge has not yet heard the other side’s arguments,” Richard Cupp, a law professor at Pepperdine University, told Science magazine.

The fact that the court will hear the other side’s arguments on May 6 is enough, however, for the Nonhuman Rights Project to be hopeful that Hercules and Leo could someday soon be under the care of Save the Chimps, a sanctuary in Ft. Pierce, Fla.

“The issuance of the Order means, we believe, that the Court believes at minimum that the chimpanzees could possibly be legal persons,” the Nonhuman Rights Project said in an updated press release.

Citing the pending litigation, Stony Brook officials won’t comment on the case or discuss the animals’ living conditions, but Newsday reported that the chimps are believed to be housed within the Stony Brook Division of Laboratory Animal Research.

The Nonhuman Rights Project has brought similar cases before the court in the past. In December, a New York appeals court decided against granting “legal personhood” to a chimp in Fulton County.

“So far as legal theory is concerned, a person is any being whom the law regards as capable of rights and duties,” the court said in that case, according to a statement obtained by the Associated Press. ““Needless to say, unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions.”

Photo: Flickr/Creative Commons/Tambako The Jaguar