New York Court Rules That Chimpanzees Hercules And Leo Are Property And Not People

Two chimpanzees will not be freed from Stony Brook University where they’re use in locomotion studies after Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled July 30, that chimpanzee’s are still considered property, and not people. A lawsuit filed by the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) requested for two 8-year-old research chimps named Hercules and Leo to be taken out of confinement.

CHIMPANZEES HERCULES AND LEO ARE NOT PEOPLE

The National Public Radio reports that the animal rights group was trying to get the chimps released to a sanctuary by arguing that Hercules and Leo have “complex cognitive abilities and should be considered legal persons.” In the ruling, Justice Barbara Jaffe acknowledges that similarities between chimpanzees and humans “inspire the empathy for a beloved pet.”

This isn’t the first time that the NhRP has filed a lawsuit in attempts to help the chimps. Back in May, Steven Wise, an attorney with the NhRP, told Justice Jaffe that Hercules and Leo are “autonomous and self-determining beings” who should be granted a writ of habeas corpus, which would recognize them as legal persons.

The NhRP responded to the May ruling by saying, “This case is one of a trio of cases that the Nonhuman Rights Project has brought in an attempt to free chimpanzees imprisoned within the State of New York through an ‘Article 70-Habeas Corpus’ proceeding.  These cases are novel and this is the first time that an Order to Show Cause has issued. We are grateful for an opportunity to litigate the issue of the freedom of the chimpanzees, Hercules and Leo, at the ordered May hearing.”

According to the a statement written by the NhPR on their website, Stony Brook University has indicated it will no longer exploit Hercules and Leo in experimentation. “We applaud Stony Brook for finally doing the right thing. We have made it clear that we remain willing to assist Stony Brook in sending Hercules and Leo to Save the Chimps in Ft. Pierce, Florida, where we have arranged for them to be transferred, or to an appropriate member sanctuary of NAPSA (the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance), as we did in Tommy’s and Kiko’s cases,” NhPR wrote on their website. “We have made it equally clear that, if Stony Brook attempts to move Hercules and Leo to any other place, we will immediately seek a preliminary injunction to prevent this move pending the outcome of all appeals, as we succeeded in doing in Tommy’s case last year.”