{"id":369,"date":"2020-12-21T18:26:46","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T22:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/?p=369"},"modified":"2020-12-21T18:26:46","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T22:26:46","slug":"denial-of-habeas-relief-for-bronx-zoo-elephant-affirmed-on-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/2020\/12\/21\/denial-of-habeas-relief-for-bronx-zoo-elephant-affirmed-on-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Denial of Habeas Relief for Bronx Zoo Elephant Affirmed on Appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 17, 2020, a New York intermediate appellate court rejected an attempt by the animal rights organization, Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), to obtain habeas corpus relief for a 48-year old Asian elephant named \u201cHappy,\u201d who resides at the Bronx Zoo.\u00a0 In re Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. v. Breheny<\/em>, Case No. 2020-02581 (Sup. Ct. App. Div. 1st Dept. Dec. 17, 2020)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a terse decision, the court affirmed the order of the court below which had granted the respondents\u2019 motion to dismiss the petition for a writ of habeas corpus.\u00a0 The appellate court\u2019s decision rested squarely on an earlier decision in a case, also brought by NhRP, in which the court had thoroughly rejected a virtually identical effort to obtain habeas relief for two chimpanzees.\u00a0 In re Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. v. Lavery<\/em>, 152 A.D.3d 73, 54 N.Y.S.3d 392 (1st Dept. 2017), leave denied<\/em>, 31 N.Y.3d 1054 (2018).\u00a0 In the Lavery<\/em> case, the appellate court specifically held:<\/p>\n

The gravamen of petitioner\u2019s argument that chimpanzees are entitled to habeas relief is that the human-like characteristics of Chimpanzees render them \u201cpersons\u201d for purposes of CPLR article 70.\u00a0 This position is without legal support or legal precedent<\/u><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

152 A.D.3d at 76-77 (emphasis added).\u00a0 In the \u201cHappy\u201d case, the court was more emphatic:<\/p>\n

The common-law writ of habeas corpus does not lie on behalf of Happy, the elephant at issue in this proceeding. \u2026 We decline to overrule any of our alternative holdings in Lavery<\/em>, which petitioner erroneously refers to as \u201cdicta.\u201d\u00a0 Under Lavery<\/em>, the writ of habeas corpus is limited to human beings. \u2026\u00a0 A judicial determination that species other than homo sapiens are \u201cpersons\u201d for some juridical purposes, and therefore have certain rights, would lead to a labyrinth of questions that common-law processes are ill-equipped to answer. \u00a0As we said in Lavery<\/em>, the decisions of whether and how to integrate other species into legal constructs designed for humans is a matter \u201cbetter suited to the legislative process.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Case No. 2020-02581, slip op. at 2-3 (citations omitted).<\/p>\n

As we have reported earlier<\/a>, this is just one in series of unsuccessful efforts by NhRP and other animal rights groups to get courts to recognize animals as persons with the same rights as human beings.\u00a0 Similar efforts by NhRP to seek habeas relief on behalf elephants have been uniformly unsuccessful in the Connecticut courts<\/a>.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, the NhRP announced on its website<\/a> that it will seek review of Happy\u2019s case in the New York Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On December 17, 2020, a New York intermediate appellate court rejected an attempt by the animal rights organization, Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), to obtain habeas corpus relief for a 48-year old Asian elephant named \u201cHappy,\u201d who resides at the Bronx Zoo.\u00a0 In re Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. v. Breheny, Case No. 2020-02581 (Sup. Ct. App. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Denial of Habeas Relief for Bronx Zoo Elephant Affirmed on Appeal”<\/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":[21,558,17,557,5,18,402,20],"ppma_author":[697],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-animal-rights","tag-bronx-zoo","tag-habeas-corpus","tag-happy-the-elephant","tag-john-simpson","tag-nonhuman-rights","tag-nonhuman-rights-project","tag-personhood"],"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","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","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=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/animallawdevelopments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}