Is an elephant legally a person?

In the 1970s, Happy was taken from her herd and sold as a calf for $800 to a safari company in California, according to NonHuman Rights. She was relocated to the Brooklyn Zoo in 1977. The Nonhuman Rights Project, an animal rights organization, argued that Happy is an autonomous and cognitively complex animal entitled to the same right of protection against unlawful imprisonment that people have. The zoo contends that the elephant is well cared-for and that her holding is not illegal. “What we’re saying is that, she has a right to bodily liberty and that that makes her no longer a thing,” Steven Wise, president of the Nonhuman Rights Project, said in an interview. “She’s a person.” In Happy’s case, her attorneys contend that she is so autonomous and intelligent that she has a right to bodily liberty. She passed a mirror self-recognition test in 2005 — an indication of her self-awareness, her advocates say. Their legal argument focuses on the common-law right of habeas corpus, which is typically used to determine whether a person’s detention is lawful.

Elephants are not people was the determination of a judge who ruled that “Happy the Elephant” can’t be sprung from the Bronx Zoo because she’s not legally “a person,” it was revealed Wednesday. Bronx Supreme Court Judge Alison Tuitt dismissed the NonHuman Rights Project’s petition to grant the 48-year-old pachyderm “legal personhood” in order to move her to a 2,300-acre sanctuary. “The court agrees that Happy is more than just a legal thing, or property. She is an intelligent, autonomous being who should be treated with respect and dignity, and who may be entitled to liberty,” Tuitt wrote in the judgment. “[But] we are constrained by the case law to find that Happy is not a ‘person’ and not being illegally imprisoned.” While Tuitt said she found their argument “extremely persuasive for transferring Happy,” she stopped short of allowing the relocation under laws against the unlawful imprisonment of humans. The NonHuman Rights Project said it plans to challenge.

Winning Lawsuit lifts

I’m worried about this lawsuit against Madison Cawthorn.
I just don’t see him walking away from this one.

How many lawyer jokes are there? Only three. The rest are true stories.

I heard we have 35 million laws to enforce the 10 Commandments.

Law school professor talking to the students: “You win some and lose some, but
remember, you get paid for all of them.” 

Birthdays on May 25th

1972 – Octavia Spencer, 1982 – Esme Bianco, 1969 – Anne Heche, 1975 – Lauryn Hill

1963 – Mike Meyers,  1976 – Cillian Murphy,  1803 – Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1944 – Frank Oz

Morning Motivator:

Being rich of heart makes you wealthy beyond compare.

Can a Bronx elephant ever really be Happy?