The Michigan Supreme Court has denied an appeal filed by an animal rights group that is seeking constitutional habeas corpus rights for a group of chimpanzees in an Upper Peninsula zoo.
The Nonhuman Rights Project argues the chimpanzees are so closely related to humans that they deserve protections against wrongful imprisonment. The group wants the primates moved from the DeYoung Family Zoo in Wallace to an environment closer to their habitat in the wild.
The New York-based group lost in lower courts, including a unanimous ruling in October by a three-judge Michigan Court of Appeals panel.
The unsigned Supreme Court order issued earlier this week simply declined the case “because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.” But Justice Elizabeth Welch signed a dissenting opinion that argued the case presents new questions worthy of consideration.
Welch argued that the Court of Appeals misapplied the “social contract theory” that the apes are property and not autonomous beings.
“This case raises profound questions about bodily autonomy and whether the law should expand to offer protection to other living beings,” she wrote. “… Because the common law can evolve over time and indeed has evolved with respect to habeas relief, and because our scientific understanding of the animal kingdom is constantly evolving, I believe that we should explore this issue further.”
That dissent was a glimmer of light in an otherwise disappointing decision, said attorney Jake Davis with the Nonhuman Rights Project. He told Michigan Public Radio the Nonhuman Rights Project has yet to win a case at the high court level. But a small collection of dissents from judges and justices in New York and now Michigan are helping the group chart its legal path, he said.
“What we were hoping to do was to attract at least some support from at least some state high court judges and in doing so we would be able to chip away at this arbitrary legal wall that separates humans from all nonhumans,” he said.
Davis said the group will likely ask the court to reconsider its decision – a request that is rarely granted. Davis said the group has filed similar cases on behalf of chimpanzees and elephants that are pending in Hawaii and Pennsylvania. Efforts to contact a spokesperson for the DeYoung Family Zoo were not successful.
