Perspicuo
Veteran Member
Reuters: New York court to weigh legal rights of chimps
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/07/us-usa-chimpanzee-idUSKCN0HW1LU20141007
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/07/us-usa-chimpanzee-idUSKCN0HW1LU20141007
A New York appeals court will consider this week whether chimpanzees are entitled to "legal personhood" in what experts say is the first case of its kind.
For Steven Wise, the lawyer behind the case involving a chimp named Tommy, it is the culmination of three decades of seeking to extend rights historically reserved for humans to other intelligent animals.
On Wednesday, a mid-level state appeals court in Albany will hear the case of the 26-year-old Tommy, who is owned by a human and lives alone in what Wise describes as a "dark, dank shed" in upstate New York.
Wise is seeking a ruling that Tommy has been unlawfully imprisoned and should be released to a chimp sanctuary in Florida.