Posted on 10/30/2025 7:49:46 AM PDT by Red Badger
Chimpanzees are not “persons” capable of being “imprisoned” for purposes of habeas corpus.
It’s not every day a court is asked whether chimpanzees have constitutional rights just like people do, but that was the novel question before a three-judge panel of the Michigan state court of appeals earlier this month.
The answer, of course, was no. Chimpanzees are not “persons” in the eyes of the law, the appellate court held, denying the petition for habeas corpus filed on behalf of seven chimps by the Nonhuman Rights Project, an advocacy group dedicated to securing legal rights for “nonhuman animals.”
In fact, this wasn’t the first time the organization tried to get primates out of prison, i.e., the zoo. Professor Jacobson wrote about a similar claim they filed in New York state over ten years ago here. They lost, for the same obvious reason: chimpanzees aren’t “persons” entitled to habeas corpus relief for false imprisonment.
That didn’t stop the animal rights zealots from trying again, this time seeking to free the chimps held captive at the roadside DeYoung Family Zoo in Michigan. In December 2023, the Michigan circuit court summarily denied their request without holding a hearing, presumably because it didn’t need to. Again, the alleged “prisoner” chimpanzees were not “persons” eligible for habeas relief, Judge Mary Barglind stated on the court’s order form. The Nonhuman Rights Project appealed.
Writing on behalf of the appellate court, Judge Matthew Ackerman traces the origins of the habeas remedy back to English common law to affirm the trial court’s decision.
Chimpanzees are animals, and the law regards animals as property, the judge concluded—no doubt to the chagrin of the Nonhuman Rights Project.
Man’s dominion over beast is rooted in the creation narrative, the esteemed jurist Sir William Blackstone explained over 200 years ago:
In the beginning of the world, we are informed by holy writ, the all-bountiful Creator gave to man ‘dominion over all the earth; and over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’ . . . The earth, therefore, and all things therein, are the general property of all mankind, exclusive of other beings, from the immediate gift of the Creator.
“No exception exists for ‘intelligent’ animals, which in any event has no natural stopping point,” Judge Ackerman added.
This is not the animals-are-people-too result the Nonhuman Rights Project was hoping for, and they say they will appeal the decision to the Michigan Supreme Court.
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Grant them the same rights and responsibilities as humans, and the chimps will soon end up in cages with the other criminals. Would we then be able to really tell the difference?
That crazy Babylon Bee! Oh wait...
The fine folks at The Bee cannot compete with REALITY!................
Why didn’t the Zoo settle, I think a bunch of bananas would be fair!
Folks I’ve got a bunch of Monkey jokes and I’ll be here a weekend……..
It was thrown out because it was a Kangaroo Court, not a Monkey court............
Does this “primates not being persons” extend to the members of the so-called “Squad” in Congress?
The Nonhuman Rights Project should have to pay all attorneys’ fees and court costs for this nonsense.
"Jerry Was a Man" (1947) is a short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It is about an attempt by a genetically modified chimpanzee to achieve human rights. The main theme of the story is civil liberties, in this case extended towards a group of genetically enhanced chimpanzees to allow them equal rights under the law.See, I still can remember things.The story was originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1947, and is collected in the book Assignment in Eternity.
Similar to “The Positronic Man” by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg.
A novel about a robot that gradually becomes human over a space of 200 years.
It was made into a 1999 movie called “The Bicentennial Man” starring Robin Williams and Sam Neill.............
Good one!
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