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On this day in vegan history · July 29, 2015

A Judge Weighs Personhood for Two Chimpanzees

A New York judge came within a binding precedent of recognizing two research chimpanzees as legal persons.

The facts

Decided
July 29, 2015, New York County Supreme Court
Judge
Justice Barbara Jaffe
The case
Nonhuman Rights Project ex rel. Hercules and Leo v. Stanley
Outcome
Habeas corpus petition denied, bound by higher-court precedent

On July 29, 2015, Justice Barbara Jaffe of the New York County Supreme Court ruled on a habeas corpus petition brought by the Nonhuman Rights Project on behalf of Hercules and Leo, two chimpanzees held in a university laboratory. The group wanted the court to recognize the chimpanzees as legal persons with a right to bodily liberty and to send them to a sanctuary. Jaffe denied the petition, but the way she denied it mattered. She wrote that she was bound by a higher court's earlier ruling in a similar case, and left the door open. The chimpanzees stayed where they were, yet the argument had been taken seriously in a courtroom, which was itself new.

In their words

The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.

  1. For now, however, given the precedent to which I am bound, it is hereby ORDERED, that the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is denied.

    Justice Barbara Jaffe, ruling of July 29, 2015

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. A hearing was held on May 27 and on July 29, 2015, Justice Jaffe issued an order denying Hercules and Leo's petition.

    Wikipedia, on the Nonhuman Rights Project

    Source: Wikipedia

Why it still matters

The ruling was one of the first times a court engaged the question of legal personhood for an animal on the merits rather than dismissing it outright. The Nonhuman Rights Project treated the loss as progress, and the argument later reached New York's highest court in the case of an elephant named Happy.

Sources

This history is still being written.

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