by John M. Simpson.<\/p>\n
The Connecticut Appellate Court recently rejected yet another attempt by the animal rights group Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. (NHRP) to free an elephant in private ownership through the device of a petition for habeas corpus.\u00a0 Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. v. R. W. Commerford & Sons, Inc.<\/em>, No. AC 42795 (Conn. App. May 19, 2020)<\/a>.<\/p>\n We have reported on this litigation in prior posts (here<\/a> and here<\/a>).\u00a0 In the first iteration of the case (Commerford I<\/em>), a habeas petition was filed on behalf of three elephants (Beulah, Karen and Minnie) owned by a private exhibitor in Connecticut and was denied at the trial court level.\u00a0 The lower court\u2019s ruling was affirmed by the Appellate Court on the grounds that:<\/p>\n Perhaps more fundamentally, the Appellate Court concluded in Commerford I<\/em> that the notion that an elephant has \u201crights\u201d is incompatible with the \u201csocial compact theory\u201d that underlies human legal institutions:<\/p>\n [Commerford I<\/em>] discussed the social compact theory, pursuant to which \u201call individuals are born with certain natural rights and that people, in freely consenting to be governed, enter a social compact with their government by virtue of which they relinquish certain individual liberties in exchange for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and estates.\u201d \u2026 [Commerford I<\/em>] explained that elephants and other nonhuman animals are \u201cincapable of bearing duties and social responsibilities required by such social compact.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Slip op. at 5 (quoting Commerford I<\/em>).\u00a0 NHRP sought reconsideration of Commerford I<\/em> en banc<\/em> as well as review by the Supreme Court of Connecticut, and both requests were denied.<\/p>\n In the present appeal, which was of a lower court ruling denying a second habeas petition filed on behalf of a single elephant (Minnie — the other two had died), the Appellate Court affirmed on the basis of Commerford I<\/em>:<\/p>\n The petitioner has failed entirely to present any material distinctions between Commerford I<\/em> and the present case. The reasoning and the holding in Commerford I<\/em> are clearly applicable to the present case, and control the resolution of this appeal.\u00a0 We therefore conclude that Minnie and, consequently, the petitioner, lacked standing to file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Slip op. at 6.\u00a0 The Appellate Court also criticized NHRP for bringing a duplicative habeas petition in a second district (Tolland) seeking the essentially same relief after the first petition had been denied in the Lichtfield district court.\u00a0 This was\u00a0 a stratagem that counsel for NHRP \u201cconceded \u2026 constituted \u2018judge shopping.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Slip op. (n.5).\u00a0 Counsel argued that the second petition was brought in a district where the judges allegedly \u201cwould have a greater understanding of habeas corpus.\u201d\u00a0 Id<\/em>.\u00a0 The Appellate Court found this wholly unpersuasive:<\/p>\n We strongly disagree that counsels\u2019 filing of the habeas petition in Tolland was proper. \u2026\u00a0 Furthermore, we are extremely troubled by counsels\u2019 implication that filing a second action that is virtually identical to the first action, which the petitioner lost, was justified because Judge Bentivegna did not have sufficient knowledge of or experience in habeas corpus matters when he ruled against the petitioner.\u00a0 Not only does such a suggestion unfairly impugn an experienced and capable judge, our system does not work that way.\u00a0 A litigant may not file a repetitive action just because it is unhappy with the ruling of the first judge.\u00a0 A disappointed litigant\u2019s remedy after losing in the trial court is to appeal to this court or to our Supreme Court, not to file a second action essentially asking one Superior Court judge to overrule another.\u00a0 This is not a novel concept.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n NHRP\u2019s efforts to obtain habeas relief for \u201cHappy\u201d \u2013 the elephant resident at the Bronx Zoo \u2013 continue to consume judicial resources in the State of New York (as we have reported here<\/a>) with no more success to date than the outcomes in Connecticut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by John M. Simpson. The Connecticut Appellate Court recently rejected yet another attempt by the animal rights group Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. (NHRP) to free an elephant in private ownership through the device of a petition for habeas corpus.\u00a0 Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. v. R. W. Commerford & Sons, Inc., No. AC 42795 (Conn. App. … <\/p>\n Continue reading “Habeas Corpus Petition For Elephant Strikes Out Again”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,21,373,5,638,639,100,18,402],"ppma_author":[697],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-animal-law","tag-animal-rights","tag-elephant","tag-john-simpson","tag-legal-personhood","tag-legal-rights-for-animals","tag-legal-standing","tag-nonhuman-rights","tag-nonhuman-rights-project"],"authors":[{"term_id":697,"user_id":317,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jmsimpson","display_name":"John M. Simpson","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2018\/06\/simpsonjohn-125x150.jpg","author_category":"","last_name":"Simpson","first_name":"John M.","job_title":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/johnmsimpson.html","description":"Read John's bio.<\/a>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\n
\n