By Robert Gavin |

The case for legal “personhood” of chimpanzees in New York will not be heard anytime soon at the state’s highest court, but don’t expect the battle to end.

Advocates for the apes’ plight plan to continue making their case in court — and have some top legal scholars in their corner.

Lawyers for the Nonhuman Rights Project, you may recall, previously made their case to Appellate Division of state Supreme Court departments in Albany and Rochester arguing that chimpanzees were being held against their will in conditions no ape would ever choose to live in. The group asked the two appellate departments to issue writs of habeas corpus on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee living in Montgomery County, and Kiko, a chimpanzee in western New York.

Judges typically issue writs of habeas corpus to demand that a prisoner be produced to determine if the person’s imprisonment is legal. The Nonhuman Rights Project sought to do the same with chimpanzees, noting that courts have recognized ships, corporations and holy books as people, legally speaking. The appellate courts rejected that argument, prompting the Nonhuman Rights Project to try to convince the Court of Appeals to agree to hear the case. The high court declined to even hear the case in its Tuesday decisions, a move that could have deflated the effort.

Instead, attorney Steven Wise, the Florida-based leader of the Nonhuman Rights Project, promised a new approach.

“While disappointed in the Court of Appeals’ decision today denying our motions for leave to further appeal in both Tommy’s and Kiko’s cases we are in no way discouraged,” Wise said. “We are still in the early stages of a long-term multi-state strategic litigation campaign to change the legal status of appropriate nonhuman animals like Tommy and Kiko from mere ‘things’ to ‘persons’ possessing such fundamental rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty. We already are discussing whether, where, and how to refile Tommy’s and Kiko’s cases in the appropriate courts.”

Tommy has been living in a cage inside a warehouse-type building in Montgomery County. Wise’s hope is that Tommy, Kiko and other chimpanzees in New York can be released into the care of Save the Chimps, a sanctuary in Florida with 13 artificial islands and conditions close to the animals’ natural habitat.

On its face it seems like an eminently reasonable objective, but no judge in New York seems to want to make history ruling that an ape is a person. Karen Peters, the presiding justice of the Appellate Division’s 3rd Department in Albany, wrote: “Not surprisingly, animals have never been considered persons for the purposes of habeas corpus relief, nor have they been explicitly considered as persons or entities capable of asserting rights for the purpose of state or federal law.”

On Tuesday, Wise argued that Peters’ department “ruled against us because it claimed — without any evidence being presented — that chimpanzees could not shoulder duties and responsibilities, despite the fact that a vast number of humans cannot shoulder duties and responsibilities either.”

Wise said Harvard Law Professor Laurence H. Tribe, a pre-eminent U.S. constitutional law professor since the late 1960s (President Barack Obama was once his research assistant), filed a letter brief with the Court of Appeals arguing that Tommy’s case had been wrongly decided and planned top write a full brief to support the group’s position. Wise said The Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City was also backing the group’s argument.

“We are not alone in our view,” Wise said.

And the battle for “personhood” continues.

Source: http://m.timesunion.com/local/article/Lawbeat-Ape-rights-crusade-continues-despite-6481772.php