BEN LAMBERT: ‘A Connecticut judge… denied a petition… for a writ of habeas… seeking to free three elephants from the Commerford Zoo, rejecting the argument that the animals should be granted legal personhood,… stating that “the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction and the petition is wholly frivolous on its face in legal terms”… The decision was based on two conclusions… one, that the group did not have a prior relationship with the three elephants, and thus did not have standing to bring the petition; and two, that there was no precedent for providing elephants the rights of legal personhood.
The Nonhuman Rights Project filed the lawsuit in November, with the hopes of garnering a writ of habeas corpus for three elephants from the Goshen zoo — Beulah, Karen and Minnie. The Florida-based group contended that, considering their cognitive abilities and sense of self, the animals should be considered autonomous beings and thus legal persons who cannot be detained under the law,… claiming these as examples of their “complex cognitive abilities sufficient for common law personhood and the common law right to bodily liberty’. SOURCE…
RELATED VIDEO: