The Struggle for the Legal Rights of Nonhuman Animals Begins - the Experience of the Nonhuman Rights Project in New York and Connecticut
![handle is hein.journals/anim25 and id is 389 raw text is:
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LEGAL RIGHTS OF
NONHUMAN ANIMALS BEGINS - THE EXPERIENCE
OF THE NONHUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT IN
NEW YORK AND CONNECTICUT
By
Steven M. Wise*
Twenty-five years ago, in the first issue of Animal Law, the author of-
fered an account of why legal rights do not need to be restricted to human
beings. Here the author expands upon that account to provide a review of the
ongoing struggle of the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) to obtain legal
rights for nonhuman animals. The Author outlines habeas corpus cases the
NhRP has brought on behalf of chimpanzees and elephants in New York
and Connecticut and provides a view of the New York and Connecticut Pet
Trust Statutes, which grant certain nonhuman animals the right to be
named a beneficiary of a trust, thereby implicitly creating their legal per-
sonhood. This Article further argues that legal personhood does not attach
to humans alone and illuminates the varieties of judicial responses it has
encountered in its effort to persuade courts to assign legal personhood to
nonhuman animals.
I. INTRODUCTION ...................... .................. 368
H. THE STRUGGLE TO OBTAIN LEGAL RIGHTS FOR
CHIMPANZEES AND ELEPHANTS IN NEW YORK
STA TE ................................................... 372
A. Introduction ....................................... 372
B. The Court of Appeals Decision in Byrn .................. 372
C. The New York Pet Trust Statute ........................ 373
D. The Third Department's Decision in Tommy I ........... 374
E. The Fourth Department's Decision in Presti ............. 378
F. The First Department's Decision in Tommy II ........... 379
G. Judge Fahey's Court of Appeals Concurrence in Tommy
III .................................................... 380
H. The Fourth Department's Decision in People v. Graves ... 381
I. The Orleans Supreme Court in Happy's Case ............ 382
* © Steven M. Wise is founder and president of the Nonhuman Rights Project. He
has practiced animal protection law for thirty years throughout the U.S. and is the au-
thor of four books: Rattling the Cage - Toward Legal Rights for Animals; Drawing the
Line - Science and the Case for Animal Rights; Though the Heavens May Fall - The
Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery; and An American Trilogy -
Death, Slavery, and Dominton Along the Banks of the Cape Fear River. He holds a J.D.
from Boston University Law School and a B.S. in Chemistry from the College of William
and Mary.
[367]](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/anim25&div=26&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most