"♪ ♪" "♪ ♪" "(bellows)" "Steven Wise:" "These animals are extraordinarily cognitively complex." "They have their own cultures." "They're self-conscious, autonomous, and self-determining." "They have a theory of mind, so that they not only know that they have a mind, but they know others have a mind." "They understand that they are individuals who existed yesterday and will exist tomorrow, because when you imprison a chimpanzee, the chimpanzee understands that tomorrow he's gonna be in prison." "And as far as he knows, it's not gonna end." "♪ ♪" "What we're trying to do is change the way people view nonhuman animals, because right now, the line between human beings and nonhuman animals is at an irrational place." ""It's," Are you a human?" "You have rights." "You're not a human, you don't,"" "and we're saying that's wrong." "It's a hell of a war." "There's gonna be a lot of battles in the war." "But it's time to begin." "It's amazing." "Steve, did you ever think?" "Uh, exactly." "Yeah." "Exactly." "Man:" "All rise!" "(Gavel tapping)" "Woman:" "Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye." "All persons having business for this Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the State of New York, let them draw near." "The first case is Matter of Nonhuman Rights Project v. Lavery." "Mr. Wise, I believe you're arguing." "Thank you, Your Honor." "May it please the court." "My name is Steven Wise." "(shutters clicking)" "♪ ♪" "(lock clacks open)" "(keyboard clicking)" "(phone ringing)" "(sighs)" "Yup?" "Woman:" "Uh, just a few things." "I just got an email from Stephanie and Aaron's had to choose it." "Okay." "We want to make sure that the judge has as small a number of reasons for throwing us out without reaching the merits of the case." "(woman indistinct)" "Yeah, well, keep me informed." "Sure. (receiver clicks)" "Wise:" "That's it." "That is the one that someone gave me in 1979." "That was the first time I opened this book up." "(screeching) I said, "Holy smoke,"" "I had no idea that we were treating animals this way."" "(screeching)" "(screeching)" "At one point, this was the only book in the library, and everything else really is gathered as a result of this book." "♪ ♪" "When I read Peter Singer's book," "I had kind of an epiphany because I thought," ""Well, why am I a lawyer?"" "You know, I'm a lawyer in order to pursue justice, to try to, you know, raise up the underdog." "And I thought, "I can't think of..." ""of beings who are more brutalized than this" ""in greater numbers, and if I spend my life" ""working on their behalf, I will have done more than anything I could do as a human lawyer."" "So, I immediately, like, changed the focus of my law practice, you know, almost on a dime." "My law partner was stunned." "(laughs)" "(bellowing)" "Head down. (Squeaks)" "Wise:" "When I see nonhuman animals who are being horribly used and exploited (bellows) and who are killed by the millions or the billions, (clucking)" "I see all these lives being taken for frivolous human reasons, (squeak) and it's all they have, (squeals) just like it's all I have." "And I don't believe that there's something extraordinarily exceptional about every human being, that they somehow have something that allows them to be the masters of the world and all the nonhuman animals are the slaves of the world." "So, I decided to bring the whole problem to the attention of the legal system and then do something about it." "All we can do is kick the first door open." "That's what we're trying to do." "We're trying to kick the door open and have people consider the personhood of nonhuman animals." "I taught at Harvard." "Uh, the first class had what I call Animal Rights Law in the, in the spring of 2000, so it was the first time" "Harvard ever had a course like that." "People laughed at me and they barked when I went into a courtroom and, uh, and people thought what I was doing was exceedingly odd." "Isn't our culture gone awry here a little bit?" "What you do, is you erase the line that has been artificially drawn between human beings and nonhuman beings..." "That's not an artificial line." "It is an artificial line." "They are not human beings." "They don't have human-like intelligence, and putting them on the same legal standing as a human being, that's, uh, that's insanity." "Woman:" "Without further ado, Steve Wise." "(applause)" "It is great to be back here." "I feel like kind of a Borscht Belt comedian here." "Uh, I have been practicing animal protection law..." "This kind I call doggy death cases..." "For 30 years." "Dogs who are ordered killed because of..." "Because they were very bad dogs." "But I thought to myself," ""I can save five or six dogs' lives a year" ""and save some other animals too, and that should be enough to get me into heaven,"" "but the problem is, is that in the United States alone, you know, for every beat of my heart," "160 animals are killed." "So, I can work for the next 40 or 50 years and I can save the lives of one heartbeat's worth of animals." "Uh, I didn't want to do that." "So, I helped form the Nonhuman Rights Project, and now we've been laying the groundwork for the first lawsuits that are going to..." "To truly, seriously, take on the idea of whether a nonhuman animal has to be a legal thing or whether or not it's possible to be a legal person." "There's this thick legal wall." "On one side of the wall are..." "Are us now, all of us human beings." "We all have legal rights." "We all have the capacity..." "We're all persons..." "We have the capacity for legal rights." "On the other side of the wall is the rest of creation, and every nonhuman animal is seen as a legal thing, right-less." "So, how do you get the attention of the judge?" "How do you say "Hey, I shouldn't..." "I shouldn't be a thing." "I should be a legal person"?" "The judge could say, "I'm sorry"," ""is someone saying something?" "I don't see..." "I don't see you."" "You're invisible." "You're invisible to the law because you're a thing." "And when you start studying the history of the common law, you realize that women were not persons for many purposes." "Children weren't, and slaves." "Now, the word "personhood" is extraordinarily complex, and in fact, most people thought about it when the Citizens United case came down." "For the first time in their life, it dawned on them that a... an entity that was not a human could be a person." "So for example, now humans are persons, but so can a corporation, so can a ship, so can a partnership." "And I argue that these nonhuman animals..." "All four species of great apes, all of the elephants all of the cetaceans..." "Are so cognitively complicated that these beings should be persons today, and they should have certain kinds of rights that are fundamental to them." "So, the purpose of the Nonhuman Rights Project is to persuade a court to, like, make a legal punch through that wall." "(applause)" "David Favre:" "Steve, this is a case that presents the opportunity for the first time to acknowledge animals as having legal rights, and..." "Wise:" "Check." "That's right." "And do we really want to do that in the face of the potential consequences that would flow from it?" "But I'm just talking about the, uh, the very few animals that we're thinking of at the beginning." "Um, we're talking about, um, you know, apes." "We're talking about cetaceans." "We're talking about elephants." "And why those?" "Why are those gonna be a different set?" "Well, first of all, they're not native to the United States." "They don't have a large economic value." "Uh, there's been a lot of research done on them, cognitive research that kind of reverberate in ways in which we can identify with them." "Right..." "But the slippery slope moves you immediately to the dogs and cats, doesn't it?" "Because if you do that for this one animal, you've done it for all animals." "Well, we're not asking that a chicken have rights or that a cow have rights or that they even be deemed legal persons." "What we're saying is, is that this gorilla or this dolphin..." "But if the judge lets this happen," "PETA's gonna file a suit the next day and go for chickens." "Well, we'll have to see what their arguments are." "(laughs)" "It's kind of terra nova, you know, people haven't..." "People haven't tried it, so we have to figure out, you know, what... what we can do, but we know that where they are now is wrong." "♪ ♪" "Wise:" "The Nonhuman Rights Project is planning on bringing probably two suits in 2013 in..." "In, uh, two states in the United States." "And this... these... these are really..." "Woman:" "Which states?" "Uh, two states." "We haven't yet chosen those states." "We have been, uh..." "We have about, um, 70, that's seven-zero volunteers." "They're law professors or they're lawyers or they're law students." "Liz!" "Liz, how are you?" "Oh, I've never..." "Oh." "So what we want to do is try to figure out through our work today the way that we're gonna win this, these suits." "We have to understand how judges think." "Right." "One of the hurdles that we're going to have to overcome is the judge saying," ""Listen, you're animal welfare people." ""You have the Animal Welfare Act," ""You have, you know, humane slaughter." "Why isn't that enough?"" "Well, that raises a whole other issue, which is how do we... how do we characterize this case?" "'Cause if I am the other side," "I want to characterize it exactly in that way." ""Hey judge, this is an animal case."" "And we're saying, "Hey judge, this is a civil liberties case."" "Stein:" "Right, this is not an animal welfare case." "This is a "human rights" case." "Right." "Because no court has ever been asked to decide to what degree a nonhuman animal should be entitled to equality because of..." "Because we're like them." "Miller:" "Right." "♪ ♪" "Wise:" "The animals that we're looking at most closely are the different species of great apes, 'cause they're really, really smart." "So I'm looking to speak to the world's experts in..." "In those areas." "All the people who study those specific animals, especially the cognition, those are the people that I try to track down." "♪ ♪" "(chimpanzee hooting, screeching)" "(hooting)" "Jensvold:" "Hey, Tatu." "Tatu." "(hooting)" "She's signing "milk."" "Who wants milk?" "Can you sign?" "Tatu." "What color is the milk?" "Do you remember?" "White, yes." "You're so smart." "(hooting)" "(hooting)" "Jenvold:" "Tatu was cross-fostered by Allen and Trixie Gardner." "So when she was just two days old, she joined this cross-fostering project, meaning that she was raised exactly like a human child." "She learned to use spoons, she sat in a high chair, she wore a bib, she, you know, learned to use the potty, she had a bath every night." "And so in that environment, from the humans, she acquired her signs." "♪ ♪" "The sign language stuff is really nice evidence for the project Steven's doing." "When people see the chimps signing, they see nonhumans in a completely different light 'cause they're like," ""Wait a minute, they just said something."" "Wise:" "Hello." "Nice to meet you." "Nice to meet you." "Yeah." "Thanks for helping us." "I'm Steve's wife, Gail." "Hi, how are you?" "Hi." "Nice to meet you." "Well, I actually went to a talk many years ago, and it was the beginning of you talking about this stuff." "Yeah, well, we used to talk about what we were thinking of doing, and then what we were planning on doing, and now we talk about what we're doing." "Yes. (Chuckles)" "Anyway." "I'm really interested in the signing." "What sort of signing's gone on since the two chimpanzees have moved here between themselves and with others too." "And then yeah, they're signing with the other chimps." "I'm excited." "Yeah." "(grunting)" "Gail:" "It's talking." "Jenvold:" "She's signing, "Chase, chase."" "Just like that, that's chase?" "Punches, yeah." "That's chase." "This is coffee, so you gotta be careful." "(laughter) Yeah." "Interesting." "Now she's signing, "Black, black." Black's her favorite color." "Uh-huh." "You can see black clothes." "The water and the trees." "And then she signed tree." "It's so different than where they were." "It's not freedom by any stretch of the means, but still." "Crow:" "You know, they're all institutionalized in research or in captive situations, so they have the need to be close to caging and to be in a confined space." "Yeah." "You know, they don't climb trees." "They don't use some of the things we have here." "Yeah." "Like, we'll go take a look at the island areas, you know, it's outdoor space without bars over your head, but that's okay because it's there and they want it, they have it." "Wise:" "Autonomy, autonomy is what I talk about because we value it so much." "We do." "And when we punish people, we punish them by taking away their autonomy." "Right." "And, uh, that's really what putting you in prison is." "It's a stripping you of your autonomy in every way, and that's a terrible, terrible punishment for you." "Gail:" "Yeah." "Wise:" "It just breaks my heart." "Yeah." "♪ ♪" "In Japan there was a, uh, there was a chimpanzee colony, and then the place built a, uh, kind of a lab that jutted into the place where the chimpanzees were outside, and then they had computer terminals inside" "and outside, and that's where they have the, um, experiments about the memory." "They, like, flash something on the screen for, like, a quarter-second." "They'll flash a series of numbers, and then they cover up the numbers in, like, a tenth of a second, and then the chimpanzees can then recall what the numbers were and press them in the right order." "I did that, I was not as good as the chimpanzees." "Woman:" "Teco." "Teco. (Laughter)" "I know you want to see him." "Woman: (laughs) Yeah." "I know you want to see him." "Wise:" "Why do I feel like a little school girl?" "(laughter) When he's ready." "We can only go to people when they're ready." "Wise:" "Okay." "Oh." "Woman:" "Aww." "Savage-Rumbaugh:" "He would like to learn a click language." "If we knew a click language, we could probably instill it in Teco." "Oh." "(screeching)" "No." "You can see that Kanzi's already asking for you to talk to him." "You want me to come in and see you?" "(screeches)" "Yeah, he wants me to come in and see him right now." "(beeping) Okay, go ahead." "Computer:" "Sue." "Ball." "Question." "Visitors." "Have." "Ball?" "Do you have a ball?" "Kanzi wants to know if you have a ball." "Is this the ball or is it a bigger ball?" "Savage-Rumbaugh:" "Kanzi?" "Come say "big" if you want a big ball." "Computer:" "Little." "Little ball." "Is that what you want?" "You want that little ball?" "Kanzi can understand all kinds of things, all kinds of novel sentences, almost anything." "I'm gonna put on my mask and we're gonna try it. (Screeches)" "A sentence with Kanzi, okay?" "Kanzi, could you take my shoe off please?" "You might need to untie it." "Good job." "So we may be coming to you to see if you might help us in filing an affidavit, talking about your work, especially if we have an ape, uh, talking about the cognitive abilities that they might have" "that would then help us persuade courts." "Are you going to try to make a case that apes, cetaceans, and elephants are particularly intelligent and different from other animals or?" "No." "We're just going to make a case that there are certain criteria, what I call practical autonomy, and that any animal who meets that criteria should then be a legal person." "Yeah." "Computer:" "Banana." "Shoes." "Wise:" "I'd want every single known fact about chimpanzee cognition to be in our... in an affidavit." "Right." "We have to overwhelm the judge with everything that's possibly out there." "Yes." "Right." "And of course the fact that Jane Goodall's on our board, um, when we contact someone, remind them that Jane Goodall is on our board." "Exactly." "Okay, well, we are 100% sure that... that New York is our jurisdiction." "Okay." "And we appear to have four chimpanzees who are possible in New York." "Right." "So, who would we go with?" "Miller:" "Well, let's start off with Charlie." "Wise:" "Okay." "Who's his mate?" "Kiko." "Kiko is deaf from brain damage when he was abused." "Oh." "Yeah, and I looked at the YouTube video of Charlie that they put out." "Punch!" "Come on!" "Punch!" "Punch, punch..." "Marino:" "Actually, they've been on TV." ""National Geographic" did something on them." "Good kick." "Marino:" "He and his wife lived in the home with him." "Woman:" "Charlie, big boy." "He doesn't need a diaper, huh?" "Marino:" "I mean he's 23 years old now, he's got a large enclosure, and you need to look at that because there's a moral issue here with Charlie." "He's not where he's supposed to be, but he is very attached to his trainer." "Wise:" "Mm..." "Marino:" "I mean, he's living an artificial life, but I'm not sure that we can make a case that it would be right to take him away." "Yeah." "Okay." "Proslin:" "Good to know." "How about the ones in the, uh..." "What's..." "Stein:" "Let's talk about the ones in Bailiwick." "In Bailiwick." "Merlin and Reba." "Merlin and Reba." "Okay." "Right." "Marino:" "Merlin and Reba, both acquired from the circus." "One is male, one is female." "Let me give you an idea." "Bailiwick also has paintball." "That would... that... that stuck into my..." "All:" "Yes." "Marino:" "I was looking at the Better Business Bureau and on the scale of A+ to F, they gave it an F." "(gasps) Wow." "That's perfect." "Okay." "Yeah." "Well, I think this is gonna send shockwaves in directions that we cannot even, um, conceive of right now." "Marino:" "Oh, absolutely." "Which is the whole purpose of what we're doing." "Stein:" "Right." "We're not in there to save two chimpanzees in the Bailiwick Zoo." "Right." "I mean, we are there, but they also represent, um, other nonhuman animals as well." "Yeah." "Mm-hmm." "♪ ♪" "(caws)" "(bleating)" "(child screams)" "(bleating)" "(hooting)" "He said that the other chimpanzee died about three days ago and that... and that." "Reba was 55 and that they only live till 60." "I think he's been there for seven years with that other chimpanzee." "Now, for three days, since Reba died, he's all by himself." "I'm sure he must be grieving and mourning in the way that chimpanzees do." "Wise:" "That chimpanzee is depressed." "He's not interested in doing anything." "He's just, um, he's just sitting there by himself." "On the Internet, there's all kinds of comments." "People are saying, "How come the zoo hasn't been cited for cruelty to animals?"" ""How come the zoo..." "How come it's allowed to operate?"" "But it appears to be perfectly legal and under the statutes of New York, there's nothing else that we can do." "Well, with any luck, it's, um, almost May." "May, June, July, August, September, October." "Seven or eight months, um, we have a shot of getting him out of there." "Pretty impressive." "(screeching)" "I found Merlin's home." "I'm already..." "I'm already..." "I imagine him, like, running around here." "♪ ♪" "Jen Feuerstein:" "When we did introductions, we tried to have a balance of male and female, uh, because chimps in the wild live in multi-male multi-female groups and male chimps get along very well." "In the wild, they would have a community of which all the chimps are familiar with each other, uh, but they would go off in, you know, groups of two, three, four, five, small sub-groups," "um, and range over, um, many miles." "So, here, um, they have the opportunity, definitely, because the islands are so large that they have their favorite spots and they can break apart, and then they usually come together at night to sleep and for meals, so this is the best way" "that we can replicate that." "Obviously, it's not perfect." "This was always one of my favorite sites." "It's just, like, a crowd of chimps together hanging out." "I mean, I love that because you see the sanctuary and it's so easy to sort of forget their past." "♪ ♪" "Man 1:" "A 37 1/2 pound chimpanzee was chosen last night to make this ride." "This particular one was selected on the basis of physical and psychological characteristics." "Man 2:" "Five, four, three, two, one, zero." "Man 1:" "There it goes." "Zero." "There it goes." "It's up in the air." "♪ ♪" "This success moved the United States closer by a big step to launch a man into space and bring him back safely." "(rattling) (screeching)" "We always like to show people, this cage came from the Coulston Foundation and we actually, um, paid to have it brought here because we just want people to remember, you know, how they were treated." "Mm." "So there was a shelf that the chimp could sit on, but this wall, the back wall of the cage hooked up to a hydraulic mechanism and then could be used to squeeze forward, so if they wanted to inject the chimp" "with some sort of experimental substance or to anesthetize them, the wall would come forward and they would just squeeze them up against the bars." "And they lived like this their entire lives." "Um, decades, and I just can't even imagine it." "And then in 2002, we were able to move everybody from what was the Coulston Foundation to Florida." "Mm. 266 chimpanzees." "That's amazing." "It was the largest rescue of chimpanzees in history." "And now they're here." "Wise:" "As soon as I saw this place," "I said "Oh my God." I was texting other people." "I said, "I hope we found"" "a place for Merlin." It's a beautiful place." "It's a spectacular place." "Yeah." "I can really imagine him being here." "Mm-hmm." "So let's assume, you know," "Merlin is declared a legal person." "Person." "Does that mean all chimpanzees in New York State are legal persons?" "No, it simply just means it's Merlin." "Just Merlin, okay." "Well, it's funny, the- the common law, it moves, like, case by case." "Mm-hmm." "So ultimately, it would seem like you wouldn't have to litigate these things anymore, eventually why litigate it." "There's already been 10 chimpanzees declared persons." "Right, right, exactly." "Right now we're..." "We haven't made it public which state we have actually picked Mm-hmm." "And which chimpanzee, Right." "And it's really the first salvo in a strategic warfare." "Mm-hmm." "The, you know, a strategic war Right." "That's about to break out in the fall." "Okay." "♪ ♪" "Prosin:" "Where's Merlin?" "I do not see him." "Oh, my God, are you serious?" "There was a sign that said there was a chimpanzee?" "Oh, my God." "He's not here." "I can't believe this." "We're two months away and this is, like, worst-case scenario." "Oh, my God, Steve is going to flip." "(line ringing)" "Wise:" "Hey, Natalie." "Hi, Steve." "So go ahead." "Talk." "Um... uh..." "Merlin died last night." "You're kidding me." "No." "No." "That's the worst scenario all the way around." "He was punching himself in the face for some time, and they finally decided to..." "To take him to the vet and he had a... an infected tooth and had a root canal, and they said he didn't make it on the way home, um, and they had an autopsy and he had an engorged liver," "and it just couldn't handle the anesthesia." "Okay." "I'm..." "I'm really sorry to break this news to you." "Oh, well, yeah, I'm..." "I'm glad, um," "I'm glad you're there and you know and... and, uh, we have to figure out our next step." "Wise:" "A week ago today," "Natalie went to Bailiwick and learned that our petitioner, Merlin, was dead." "And so, we're going back to the two that we had originally been talking about, uh, which are Kiko and Charlie at Niagara Falls." "Stein:" "Yes." "What are they called now?" "Um, The Primate Sanctuary." "They're called The Primate Sanctuary." "They were one time called Monkey Business." "Their website advertises 26 monkeys and 18 exotic birds." "And they say "Contact us for parties" or?" ""Book a presentation."" ""Book a presentation."" "When I first started looking into these kind of people," "I remember going to their website specifically and just seeing all the chimps dressed up in American flags and hats and waving their flag." "(laughs) "Seems real, he's my baby," ""he's coochie-coo," you know, that cutesy talk. (Overlapping chatter)" "Carmen said, "It is as intense as a father loves a child."" ""They aren't animals, they are my boys." "I'm Daddy and he understands Mommy, my wife, Kristi."" "(scoffs)" "It's kind of creepy." "Stein:" "I think it's really creepy." "It gave me the chills." "Wise:" "This guy, we're not saying he's an evil person." "No." "He's just essentially enslaved these animals and they kind of..." "Stein:" "I'm not so sure he's not an evil person," "It's like any kind of kidnapper." "Years..." "Siebert:" "It's a kind of delusional thinking, yeah." "Exactly, Charles." "It's delusional." "Mm-hmm." "♪ ♪" "There it is, right there." "Let's see if we can see through here." "(knocking) Presti:" "Can I help you?" "Wise:" "Is this where Charlie the karate chimpanzee is?" "Yeah." "Can I get..." "Can I buy a video?" "You can't." "We don't sell vid..." "Oh, I saw it on the Internet." "On the Internet?" "No, actually our facility isn't open to the public." "We're in the process of um, um... building a new sanctuary out in Wilson, New York." "We just got approved on June 26, uh..." "Okay." "You taught the karate?" "I did, yeah, we... we own..." "Well, my brother owns three martial arts studios in western New York, so..." "Oh, I see." "Oh, I see." "So it was something that he picked up 'cause when he was a baby, I used to take him there 'cause I'm working out, and he just picked up, and I just looked at him and was like, "Yeah, try it."" "It just mushroomed into that, and the best part about it, he loved doing it, and when he watches martial arts on, like," "YouTube or something, you could tell, he's having fun because that was what it was all about." "Siebert:" "How old is Charlie now?" "He's 27 and we have our other chimp Kiko who's a deaf chimp that we rescued." "Yeah?" "Where was Kiko rescued from?" "It was a TV series called "Tarzan Comes to New York"" "and Kiko was the chimp in it." "Well, you left the keys inside." "So what?" "Chimps can't drive." "(grunts)" "(siren wails)" "Drive." "Drive." "Presti:" "And supposedly Kiko bit someone and ended up getting the tar beat out of him." "Uh, he was hit in the head with a blunt instrument, and he ended up, uh, going deaf in both..." "Wise:" "Serious?" "He's got about maybe 10% of hearing." "Siebert:" "It must be so much work." "You know, it's just non-stop, you... you know, and I mean, don't get me wrong," "I love it, you know, just being with 'em so much, and they just turn out to be really great chimpanzees." "Really?" "Yeah." "Wise:" "Okay, well, here, I won't take up any more of your..." "Thanks so much." "Thank you." "Nice talking to you." "Okay, bye." "He wants to get 'em to a slightly less depressing place in his sanctuary." "That sanctuary's not gonna happen." "But, you know, that's the whole thing." "And I thought maybe he was independently wealthy, we know..." "Or something, but, um..." "He's trying to raise money for it and it's... a sanctuary." "He now..." "He's up to 31 primates, so 29 monkeys of various kinds and two chimpanzees." "But if... if his heart is in the right place..." "It is in the right place I think." "Which it seems to be at this juncture, I think so." "Then he probably wouldn't mind having the chimps being taken off his hand, except for one problem:" "He's emotionally bonded with them." "Well, I know he is." "You know?" "So that's gonna be, like, for him and the way he thinks, it's like taking away his children." "I..." "I agree." "♪ ♪" "Woman:" "Tonight the entertainment world is mourning a popular primate." "Charlie the karate chimp passed away at a sanctuary in Niagara County yesterday." "During his 26 years..." "Wise:" "Well, I got an email that Charlie, our chimpanzee in Niagara Falls, one of the two of Charlie and Kiko, died of cardiomyopathy." "And in fact, it was the third blow that we've had in the last seven months in which our chimpanzee plaintiffs have died." "Uh... uh..." "Reba, Merlin, and now Charlie." "Right." "I mean captivity, it's just killing these guys, so I don't want to take any more chances." "Right." "We need to locate every surviving chimpanzee in New York State and file a suit on their behalf." "Yes." "That's... that's number one." "♪ ♪" "That says "Mayfield, five miles."" "We are looking for something called." "Santa's Hitching Post, and there was nothing like that." "Prosin:" "No, I said it was a trailer park." "Where'd we get the name Santa's Hitching Post?" "I have no idea." "(indistinct) I don't think it's, like..." "Oh, this is the trailer place." "And they rent out reindeer?" "There it is." "Is it The Circle G or something?" "(sighs)" "This might sound like a stupid question." "We saw somebody on "The Today Show"" "talking about reindeer and we..." "Yeah, yes we do." "You do?" "Can I see them?" "Sure." "Actually this is Buddy coming at you." "This is the one that was on "The Today Show." Oh." "Uh, are both, uh..." "Males and females have antlers?" "Yes, they do." "And the one with no horns, that's the bull." "Oh, 'cause he'll attack." "Yeah, yeah." "He... he actually comes after the gate." "Oh, I see." "Someone told me you had a monkey." "There's a chimp in there." "Oh, he's in..." "Yeah, he's actually was in, uh, movies back in the day like "Project X" and all them other..." "Chimpanzees in the space program." "Yeah." "♪ ♪" "Okay." "Stop flying." "(hoots)" "Oh, you know..." "He must be 30 or 40 years old." "We had actually one that was..." "She lived to be, like, what, 60-some-years-old at one point?" "Yeah." "Really?" "Doesn't he get lonely?" "Yeah, he is." "He's supposed to be going to Florida to go onto another farm because his... the last one that was in there was, uh, his old friend there." "She died actually not too long ago and so..." "Oh." "Trying to find him a home where he can go to be with other animals and, you know, more chimps and have more room to run around." "Sabo's... (muttering)" "Seibert:" "Sabo's Chimpanzees..." "You ought to see him through this window." "Siebert:" "Look, he's eating, he's eating a banana." "You see him eating now?" "Wise:" "Oh, yeah." "Yeah." "(chirps) Man:" "Hi, Tommy." "He... he's old." "I am not sure how old he is, but he's old." "Wise:" "This must be where he lives." "Yup, this is where he lives." "He's got TV to watch and then he's got..." "There's the jungle." "(television chatter) Siebert:" "They're strong." "Yeah, he won't do much." "He just sits there," "♪ Then everything ♪ ♪ Everything ♪" "♪ Is so wondrous ♪ ♪ Wondrous ♪" "♪ Then ask yourself, "What is this?" ♪" "♪ Like Curious ♪" "♪ Like Curious George ♪" "Wise:" "Hey, Natalie." "Well, we confirmed Tommy is one sad-looking chimpanzee." "You know, thanks for telling me about "The Today Show," 'cause I said, you know," "I'd seen him on the- I'd seen him on "The Today Show" and that, you know..." "He came and showed me his reindeer and then after a while we, uh, asked whether he had any other animals around." "(indistinct)" "Uh, he... he wasn't the owner." "He was a handyman, so he... and they said they were trying to, uh, get him... get him to a place in Florida, that's what they said." "We didn't ask anything." "Prosin:" "You know, I'm really sorry you had to see it, uh..." "It was him, there were I think perhaps 10 to 12 empty cages and then he was in one of them, and... and about perhaps, uh, 15 feet away from him was a small TV that was showing PBS cartoons." "Oh, God, that is so sad." "Oh, please, you know, I think, you know, we're all... we're all ready to cry." "It was really- it was a very sad thing." "♪ ♪" "(line ringing)" "Wise:" "Hi, Liddy." "Stein:" "Hey, Steve." "I am going to the State University at Stony Brook..." "Yeah?" "Where two chimpanzees, Hercules and Leo, are being held for research and locomotion experimentation." "Right." "If you go on Stony Brook's website, they talk about the primates, so that's why the chimpanzees must be there." "Man:" "This is Hercules." "Hercules is helping scientists understand the origins of human walking." "And this is Hercules' colleague, Leo." "By tracing the markers, the researchers were able to understand that chimps swing their hips much more than humans when they walk." "Okay, so I couldn't get any read from anyone, if they are aware of the..." "The presence of Hercules and Leo." "Wise:" "Yeah." "What I do know is that people don't want to talk about it." "They... they just... they don't." "Uh-huh." "But we can still file and, uh, if they're not there..." "Absolutely." "And because Stony Brook is a state university, Right." "We are going to go head to head with the attorney general." "Okay, let's get moving." "(overlapping chatter) Wise:" "Hello, David." "Thank you for coming." "Andy." "Hey, David." "How are you?" "I haven't seen you in a long time." "Good." "Ages." "Do you want it to be like this?" "Stein:" "Yes." "Perfect." "I want to welcome everybody, uh, today to the Nonhuman Rights Project, uh, Moot Court, in which we will be helping Steve, uh, and the Nonhuman Rights Project practice for our first lawsuits in Tommy's case." "Mr. Wise, you can understand I'm sure why we're somewhat concerned about being the first court in the entire world to come to the conclusions that you're arguing for, and it seems to me what you're saying is if I see chimpanzees" "in environments where they're not being appropriately treated, where I think they're suffering a basic welfare problem," "I'm going to go in to get them out to put them in environments where I think they are treated appropriately." "But if I see places where the animals are treated well, then I'm not going to bother with them, because what am I gonna do?" "Move them from one sanctuary to another sanctuary?" "So I'm only ultimately focused on chimpanzees that are being treated badly." "Or are being treated in a way that does not respect their autonomy and self-determination." "Right." "But so why is this just not a welfare concern?" "I mean, okay, so the Animal Welfare Act, you're not... you don't think is good enough." "The s... the, uh..." "That's right." "The anti-cruelty statute is not good enough, so why don't we just make the laws good enough?" "Have you tried to make the laws good enough?" "We have not tried to do that." "Have you gone to the AUSDA and asked them to enforce the Animal Welfare Act?" "We... we don't think that... that they're violating the Animal Welfare Act or they're..." "Or they're violating the state anti-cruelty statute." "You... you know he's in compliance with his license in every respect?" "We believe he is, that's right." "And... and that... that... that..." "That's the problem, is that..." "Is that there is no other place where we can go for his benefit, so..." "Really?" "You can't go to the legislature?" "Well, it..." "That's like saying if-if I have a problem," "I don't..." "I don't file a brief." "What I do is I go to the legislature." "I have, uh, Tommy has the right we argue now..." "No, it's not quite." "It's actually like saying..." "The right to a common law of habeas corpus." "We have a system of laws that regulate the welfare of animals and you feel that they're insufficient, which you're talking about is the welfare of animals here." "So, rather than go to the systems that make those laws and try and have them properly en... enforced, you want to come to our court and ask for a right that's never been granted in the history of humankind." "Prosin:" "May I make a suggestion?" "I feel like you've fallen for their trap." "You've dug... dug yourself a hole and you can't get out of it." "Wise:" "I don't see the problem." "Gail:" "You don't feel stuck?" "No." "I mean, stuck in what way?" "Well, now we're arguing over welfare, and..." "Welfare of animals." "Well, that's because you keep using the word "welfare," and so I figured," ""Okay, I've lost this judge."" "(overlapping chatter)" "Let people give you constructive feedback." "Wolfson:" "Let me tell you what..." "what you said back and... (laughter) Bailiff, would you remove this woman?" "Remove her from the court." "(laughter)" "Gail:" "And so how old are you?" "Woman: 88." "Gail: 88." "Wise:" "I tell Gail when she plays you, I say," ""If you just make a run, you should be able to take her."" "Whose side are you on?" "I have to be on my wife's side." "Well, what about your mother?" "I cannot." "I'm usually on my mother's side unless she's in conflict with my wife." "Yeah, you haven't been on my side in so many years." "Oh, now it's getting ugly." "Now..." "No..." "So..." "Woman:" "So you're really breaking ground here on different levels." "I hope so, 'cause no one's ever done it before, so we're trying to get all the affidavits in from all over the world, and it happened, we got them." "Everything?" "We got 'em." "Keim:" "So what is the scientific argument that you'll be making?" "Well, the scientific argument is based on the affidavits of 10 experts we have from all over the world, uh, Japan, Sweden, Germany, Scotland, England, and five more in the US based on 45 years of scientific observation" "of chimpanzee language and communication, culture, and it boils down to the fact that all three cases, you know, Tommy and Hercules and Leo and Kiko, they are autonomous creatures, they should be able to live autonomous lives." "Keim:" "If you are successful, if you win, what changes?" "What happens next?" "I kind of view it as a legal transubstantiation where the nonhuman animal would come out of that courtroom looking the exact same, but her legal status would be forever changed." "Dean, it turned out we have 400 citations." "We were, like, stunned." "Sommer:" "So, you know, if you can get to the judge, say," ""Judge, we're providing you with a lot of these affidavits" ""because with all of these primatologists," ""all of these scientists have come to the same conclusion." "It's all science, science, science, science."" "Um..." "Is this more..." "is this more advice?" "Yeah." "Okay." "Sorry." "It's... it's like a Jew..." "I..." "I see the wheels spinning in his head." "No, it's like a... no it's..." "That's the Jewish mother." "♪ ♪" "Stein:" "Steve's been working years on this." "Be kind." "Woman:" "I might take it home with me." "All right." "We've got our first decoration." "(clang)" "Thank you." "Wise:" "He was a terrific judge for us to go in front of." "Stein:" "Right." "We had not considered that he would on the spot order us in and, uh..." "Not in a million years." "To have been able to have a full oral argument..." "Yeah, without another side." "On the record that we had... is just mind-blowing." "Wise:" "He felt that since it had never been done before, he could not do it." "But he did everything he could to get us the best possible record, to get us up to the appellate courts to be able to present our argument to those people he felt had the power to do it." "Yes." "We were thinking of all the different ways that..." "That we might end up losing, and this turns out to be probably the..." "The best." "The best way." "Stein:" "Totally unexpected." "Yeah." "Siebert:" "Yeah." "Gosh, I just can't believe he kept helping us." "I know." "It's a legal victory for us, Yes." "So we want to make sure Stein:" "Exactly." "That nobody misinterprets what occurred." "Right." "So, we need to put out a comprehensive press release today." "Today." "Do you want to hear what Patrick Lavery said to "The New York Times"?" "Yes." "Sure." ""Patrick C. Lavery, the owner of Circle L Trailer Sales"" ""in Gloversville where Tommy lives,"" ""said that he had heard about the petition"" ""from reporters' telephone calls."" ""If they were to see where the chimp lived"" ""for the first 30 years of his life,"" ""they would jump up and down for joy where he is now."" "Yeah, sure. (Mutters)" ""Mr. Lavery said he had not been seen or been officially notified of the petition."" "He has now." "(mumbling) This is "The New York Times"?" "References." "Oh, I love that." "Woman:" "Kind of a bizarre lawsuit with big implications." "At the center of it is a chimpanzee and the key question is whether a chimp is a person." "Man:" "Steven Wise of the Nonhuman Rights Project is seeking a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Tommy, a 26-year-old chimp, arguing that animals with human qualities, such as chimps, deserve basic rights, including freedom from imprisonment." "Man:" "The group is trying to invoke a right known as habeas corpus, a legal procedure which entitles inmates to have a judge review their detention." "Habeas corpus means free the body, and it's been used throughout the years to free people from what's been considered an unjust incarceration." "Woman:" "Under the law, a writ of habeas corpus can only be granted to legal persons, so the judge would need to find that chimpanzees have at least some limited rights traditionally reserved for humans." "Smith:" "A landmark lawsuit was brought on behalf of Tommy, who lives caged on his owner's property in Gloversville." "Lavery:" "He's got seven rooms." "He's got a room that he likes to sleep in, another room he likes to watch his TV, and then other rooms that he plays in." "It kind of hurts when you hear allegations, people thinking that we're animal abusers here and we're not treating him properly." "Smith:" "Lavery insists Tommy loves the solitude and that his cage is licensed and inspected, saying he even has color TV and receives enrichment daily, including walls painted like a jungle." "Man:" "The owner claims that, uh, Tommy is very happy." "Um, what do you have to say to that?" "I think that um, uh, if Tommy is so happy," "I think the owners should move in." "Oh, we're in this one today too?" "I think so." "Oh, my God, it's you!" "There it is." "Okay, we'll take, uh, three "Daily News,"" "one "New York Times."" "Man:" "Okay." "Five dollars." "Thank you." "(overlapping chatter)" "So you are trying to argue that chimps should be seen." "Legal persons." "As a legal person." "Yeah, that's right." "That's right." "It's a tough sell, but not a bad cause." "(laughter)" "What... what are you guys, uh, what are you guys here talking about?" "A dirty detective, uh, from Brooklyn framed a lot of people." "Oh, I think I saw, like, a headline there." "Yeah, yeah, yeah." "But this is far more interesting than what I'm talking about actually." "(laughter, chatter)" "Kuby:" "So I suppose just reasoning this forward in looking at the corporate personhood rationale." "I take your word for it." "But it's not... it's not just corporations, it's ships, it's partnerships, it's counties, it's states." "There are lots of nonhuman persons." "There was a treaty last year between the Maoris and the New Zealand government where they agreed that a river was a person, uh, that a Hindu idol is a person." "I..." "I guess I would look to the Supreme Court's basis for declaring corporate personhood since that strikes me as much more precedential for American purposes than Hindu idols or... or New Zealand rivers, frankly." "And you think this is a better fight?" "Uh, the... the legal fight?" "Wise:" "Yeah." "Um, because you expect to win it or because it creates a really good set No..." "Of discussions the way" "Peter Singer does about, you know..." "Both." "We..." "Both." "It creates and we expect to win it." "We don't know that we're gonna win this, this first round." "Right." "But we will win it." "I like it." "I like it." "Man:" "Four, three..." "Here we go." "Man 2:" "I gotta tell you this is a very interesting case, uh," "Steven here because any time you... you... you kind of equate, uh, an animal with personhood, it raises all sorts of questions." "This country has a very sordid history when it comes to animals and humans and equating one with the other." "Of course back in the early days of this country, you had the Three-Fifths Compromise, meaning that African Americans were three-fifths of a man and then of course those equating chimpanzees and apes and stuff like that, uh, obviously." "Yes." "Hideously so with black people." "Yes." "Say, well, wait a minute, you know, you know, chimps are chimps." "They are not humans." "Obviously we're not saying..." "We're not, uh, saying that a chimpanzee is a human and we're not equating per..." "Mm-hmm." "Uh, chimpanzees with... with slaves." "Uh, what happens is that the... the... the, uh, legal path we... we're using here, writ of habeas corpus, is one that... that has been..." "Was traditionally used in England and in..." "In the United States for slaves to try to challenge their status as a thing Mm-hmm." "And move them into the status of a person." "So, there's a lot of law out there and kind of a path in front of us for how we might be able to do that for someone like Tommy." "So we're saying a... when..." "When we say Tommy's a person, we simply mean that Tommy has the capacity to have a legal right." "Okay, well, I think you clarified that, but we certainly wish Tommy and other animals like him well." "Steven Wise, thank you so much for joining us." "Thank you very much for having me." "All righty." "♪ ♪" "Justice is heavy." "Wise:" "This week in the state of New York, we filed the first two cases on behalf of chimpanzees who are living by themselves and privately owned, and today we're filing a lawsuit against, uh," "Stony Brook, which is a university here on Long Island which is imprisoning two chimpanzees that they're using for biomedical research on locomotion." "If you had a message for Stony Brook now, what would that be?" "Free the chimpanzees." "Free the Stony Brook two. (Laughs)" "(clears throat)" "Stein:" "The outcome was that he denied signing the petition." "He was not going to take the step of granting personhood to a chimpanzee." "It was the personhood issue." "Prosin:" "I was really expecting to see the judge." "Well, you know, me too." "I was, like, raring to go." "I know." "Now I haven't heard a peep from the folks in Louisiana." "Uh, I always forget their names, um..." "Stein:" "New Iberia?" "New Iberia." "Yeah." "Uh-huh." "That's funny." "Did you expect to hear something from them?" "Well, if they claim that they own the chimpanzees." "Yeah." "At Stony Brook." "Yes." "New Iberia confirmed they own them?" "Well, they probably want to keep this so quiet," "I'm not at all surprised that they haven't surfaced." "Yeah." "Man:" "Well, Jane, the humane society has spent nine months undercover at the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana." "They're one of the largest primate research labs in the country, and she witnessed physical abuse of primates." "You know, monkeys being hit, but what was perhaps the worst was seeing animals driven to self-mutilation, the psychological abuse that these animals go through being in isolation and small cages." "Many of them were tearing at their skin and their flesh with their hands, and they had gaping wounds in their arms and legs, and it was just terrible to see them literally driven mad." "(screaming)" "Man:" "Mr. Wise, your group has now lost its first three lower court rulings." "What are your chances going forward?" "Wise:" "I'm not gonna pretend that we thought we were going to win in any of the trial courts." "We did not." "And if we won at this level, it would mean a lot to that single chimpanzee, but it would destroy our chance of being able to get it up to an appellate court, and the reason that we want the decision up at an appellate court" "is that at that point it sets statewide precedent, and, uh, that's why we want the high court of the state to make the decision in our favor." "Man:" "So have you already begun the appeals process?" "Wise:" "The appeals, we're already starting, the brief writing is gonna go through the spring and then we get on some kind of an oral argument schedule and up it goes." "♪ ♪" "Woman:" "A New York appeals court is hearing a legal effort to have chimpanzees declared as persons." "Attorney Steven Wise will argue Wednesday on behalf of a chimpanzee named Tommy." "His group is also seeking the release of three other chimps in New York." "Prosin:" "Oh, boy." "Stein:" "Yes." "Prosin:" "I'm so nervous." "This has, you know, been seven years' worth of work." "Yeah." "And, uh, it's, you know, everything rests on these 10 minutes." "Yeah." "I still think that one of the arguments is going to be welfare versus rights." "Wise:" "Mm." "Why is this not a welfare case if you're claiming that Tommy is not being properly cared for?" "Wise:" "Yeah." "And you have to go back to that's not what we're talking about." "What we are talking about..." "Right." "I can't get suckered into anything other than this is the detention of an autonomous being." "We're not talking about how he's being treated." "Stein:" "Exactly." "Wise:" "Yeah." "One thing is with your private animal log cases, sometimes you get confused whether it's a cat or a dog." "Just remember that Tommy's a chimpanzee." "(laughter)" "I should." "I'll probably remember." "(chuckles)" "♪ ♪" "Steve, how are you doing?" "How am I doing?" "Yeah." "Oh, I'm just pondering stuff I've been thinking about for 30 years." "(chuckles)" "Peters:" "First case is Matter of Nonhuman Rights Project v. Lavery." "Mr. Wise, I believe you're arguing." "Thank you, Your Honor." "May it please the court." "My name is Steven Wise and I first want to thank you for the privilege of appearing on behalf of Tommy, who is a chimpanzee who is being kept in a cage in a warehouse in a town called Johnstown, New York." "Counsel, you want us to grant..." "Well, you wanted Judge Sise but now you want us." "Yes, Your Honor." "To grant him immediate release from illegal detention, is that correct?" "Yes, Your Honor." "Uh, Tommy in this circumstance is indeed a person who is entitled..." "You assert he's a person." "We haven't decided that." "Yes, Your Honor, I do... we do assert." "That is our position, that he is indeed a person uh, and he is entitled then to a common law writ of habeas corpus." "Now, usually writs of habeas corpus involve adult human beings." "Correct." "But there are many cases that have involved children, for example, slave children in Massachusetts and New York." "But there are no writs of habeas corpus, at least in this state, that have involved nonhumans." "Do you agree with that?" "I do agree with that." "This is a novel case in that way." "However..." "But even you in your brief, when you talk about individual rights, you talk about the fact that along with those individual rights come responsibilities." "And we're not..." "You don't want us to foist any responsibilities upon this chimpanzee." "No." "You just want us to determine that he has the opportunity to be free of this confinement." "The better way to view Tommy would be, uh, similar to a human child who has rights." "You can't put a little child in a cage, but doesn't have correlative responsibilities." "Mr. Wise, if I may." "Yes, Your Honor." "Corporations have been treated as legal persons in different contexts." "Citizens United, for example, is one case." "Can you give any example anywhere where in a habeas corpus context, the word "person"" "has been attributed to a nonhuman being?" "A person is not synonymous with a human being." "A person means it's someone that the civil law now says counts." "They're no longer invisible to the civil law, so we cited other common law countries." "An Indian court finds that the holy books of the Sikh religion are persons, and in 2012, there was a treaty between the indigenous peoples of New Zealand and the crown that designated a river as a legal person," "so a legal person is a legal concept." "It is not a biological concept, which was the teaching of the court of appeals in Bern." "Peters:" "We know that from your brief." "Did you ask the owners whether they would just agree to allow you to take custody of Tommy and place him in the preserve?" "And if preserve is the wrong word, I apologize." "Repeatedly." "We even said that we would drop this case if the respondent agreed to move him to a sanctuary, and only when we learned he didn't do that and he was going to move him to some place that was just about as bad as where he is now," "then we sought the preliminary injunction which this, this court allowed." "And so can we safely assume that the goal of this proceeding is to promote the wellbeing of the chimpanzee?" "No." "There's only one goal for the proceeding." "It's 'cause it's a common law habeas corpus proceeding to discharge the chimpanzee if it's not unlawful." "Are you saying that you're not interested in promoting the chimpanzee's well-being?" "That is not the purpose of our suit and..." "Then maybe the key here is a legislative lobbying activity to ensure that the statutes are changed." "That, uh, is one option, but the courts and the legislatures are co-equal branches here." "Yes, we're well aware of that." "Yeah, I'm..." "I'm sure you are." "This, um, this reminds me, for example, of the arguments that were brought up in the famous." "Somerset v. Stewart case, which is part of New York common law, where a slave was made free and Lord Mansfield understood that he had a judicial duty, as this court does, have a judicial duty to change the common law," "I understand." "Then they went to parliament." "I have to tell you, I keep having a difficult time with your using slavery as an analogy to this situation." "I just have to tell you that." "Let..." "let me, um, suggest this, that by referring to human slavery, we are in no way comparing Tommy to any kind of slaves..." "I understand." "But my suggestion is you move in a different direction for the next two minutes." "Okay." "The, uh, abilities of self-determination and autonomy are supreme values within the common law." "And these are also the same values that the writ of habeas corpus was constructed over the centuries to protect." "And we ask this court to not necessarily find that Tommy is a person, but assuming, as Lord Mansfield did, without deciding that Tommy, um, could be a person, remanding to the court with an order to show cause and then proceed" "in accordance with article 70." "Thank you counsel." "Thank you, Your Honors." "(applause)" "We were exceedingly happy with the way the oral argument went." "We thought the, uh, judges had clearly read the brief, were familiar with our record." "They asked really, uh, intelligent, probing questions." "Reporter:" "You compared Tommy's condition to slavery." "Tell me what that is." "Well, uh, Tommy is a legal thing right now, and, uh, while the courts sometimes don't like us to, uh, to compare the thinghood of Tommy with the thinghood of a human slave," "we apologize and say the only reason we do that is because Tommy has a right to get out of being held for his entire life in solitary confinement in a cage." "(overlapping chatter)" "Wise:" "Chimpanzees should have the sort of rights that go along with the sort of beings they are." "Uh, they clearly are never gonna be able to vote." "They're never gonna be able to marry." "I think a rule of thumb would be, uh, the sort of rights, uh, that, uh, say, a human five-year-old should have." "Man:" "Where do you draw the line?" "Could you ever imagine a day when, uh, it's regarded as illegal to kill and eat a cow, for example, because that cow is a sentient animal?" "Uh, I can imagine almost anything, but I don't know whether that day will come, and if so, you know, when?" "It would be probably my great-great-great grandchildren." "Do you regard yourself as making step number one towards that?" "We are intentionally making it step one." "Please welcome Steven Wise." "Colbert:" "This case is just the beginning." "Then my dog can sue to get on my couch." "(laughter)" "Now, I didn't say your dog." "I said your chimpanzee and your elephant..." "What do you have against my dog?" "I'll give you my card, you give the card to your dog." "(mouthing)" "(laughter, applause)" "Listen, if Tommy wants to have rights... (audience cheers)" "If Tommy wants to have rights as a person, he should form his own corporation." "(laughter)" "Thank you so much." "Stein:" "What time is it now?" "10:23." "Oh, boy." "(humming)" "I..." "I still think that the fact that it has taken them eight weeks, correct?" "Eight weeks, this is..." "This is eight weeks." "It's a long time." "They have to come up with something better than this is something for the legislature." "Mm-hmm." "I think that they are going to have discussion of personhood." "I really do." "I hope so." "I think they will." "Oh, here we go." "Wise:" "Is it there?" "Prosin:" "Yup, it's here." "Ah..." "Wise:" "Okay." "Let's go." "I'm shaking." "I'm, like, actually shaking." ""The subject of this litigation" ""is a chimpanzee known as Tommy" ""that is presently being kept in the city" ""of Gloversville, Fulton County." ""This appeal presents the novel question" ""of whether a chimpanzee is a person entitled" ""to the rights and protections afforded" ""by the writ of habeas corpus." "Okay. "Needless to say"," ""unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear" ""any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities," ""or be held legally accountable for their actions." ""In our view, it is this incapability to bear" ""any legal responsibilities and societal duties" ""that renders it inappropriate to confer upon chimpanzees the legal rights."" "Whoa!" "I never thought that their decision would rest on duties and..." "Duties." "Reciprocal." "Never that this..." "Didn't we talk about this at oral argument?" "Yes!" "Yes!" "We talked about..." "How you can have an incompetent, about the Bern and his..." "You can have a child." "They don't have..." "There's... there's no reciprocity of..." "Of duties and obligations." "I agree." "So are they saying that an infant?" "I know." "The implications..." "Or a handicapped person or a person who's insane or they aren't persons?" "I know, I know." ""To be sure, some humans are less able to bear Yeah." ""Legal duties or responsibilities than others." "Unable. "These differences do not alter our analysis"" ""as it is undeniable that collectively, human beings possess the unique ability to bear legal responsibility."" "Is that it?" "That's it." "Okay." "Wow." "So basically they're ruling against Tommy because of his species." "Stein:" "Yeah." "Prosin:" "Narrow." "It's a very philosophically conservative way of saying Yes." "Because animals can't enter..." "Enter into contracts especially, essentially, Exactly." "You can make them slaves for their whole lives." "Right." "This is a bad, bad, bad decision." "Wise:" "That's right." "Stein:" "Ooh, boy." "Woman 1:" "In the first case of its kind, a New York appeals court has rejected an animal rights advocate's bid to extend legal personhood to chimpanzees." "Woman 2:" "Judges in the appeal wrote that since chimpanzees have no legal responsibility for their actions, they can't be granted the same rights as people." "Man:" "Meanwhile, the Nonhuman Rights Project continues its legal challenge on behalf of Kiko, a 26-year-old chimp currently residing in Niagara Falls, New York." "(gavel tapping)" "Judge 1:" "Can I ask you a question?" "If Kiko were to be let out of where Kiko is currently being held, you're not asking that Kiko go out in the street." "You're saying that Kiko would still be confined, but in a sanctuary?" "That is correct." "Kiko would go to, uh, Save the Chimps, which is a, um, sanctuary with islands and a lake..." "Judge 2:" "But he's still going from one confinement which is bad to another confinement which is better?" "Much, much better, and his autonomy and his ability to self-determine will be allowed to flourish in a way that it's not allowed to flourish now." "So Kiko's case was even more interesting." "What happened there is that the judges decided that you can't use a writ of habeas corpus to move from really one place of confinement to another place of uh, not entire freedom." "But we had pointed out to them that children, apprentices, people, uh, with mental disorders, there were a dozen or more cases in the state of New York where subjects of writs of habeas corpus," "they just weren't thrown out in the street." "They were put under the protection of an adult." "In other words, we didn't lose because Kiko was a chimpanzee." "Their holding also applies to human beings, so while we're trying to expand the writ of habeas corpus to chimpanzees, the court responds by cutting it back for humans." "That was not what we were trying to do." "♪ ♪" "Wise:" "These decisions so far, we think that both of them are legally wrong and are kind of obviously legally wrong." "They truly don't yet grasp what we're trying to do." "And clearly there's no agreed upon reason why we should lose." "♪ ♪" "But what we're concerned about is that these judges were either consciously or unconsciously thinking if they're not human, they're not gonna have rights." "And so what they've done is they try to find some other reason for us to lose." "That's a frightening thing for an advocate, to feel that you're up against someone who either consciously or unconsciously believes that there's nothing I can tell them that's ever gonna cause them to rule in my favor." "♪ ♪" "I see." "(clicking)" "(speaking foreign language)" "Woman:" "This is the part where he's going off to school." "Koko's turning her back." "This is a sad day, and they all kiss him and kiss him and kiss him goodbye." "Aw, honey it's sad." "I know it's a sad scene." "Oh, they're crying." "They are crying on the movie." "Oh, well, honey, and there's trouble." "Trouble bad." "Oh, sweetie, with the mother, yes." "The sweet mother of the one who adopted him." "Well, I know it's hard to watch." "Wise:" "These animals, they are extraordinary." "And I feel a moral responsibility to try to allow them to live their lives the way I'd live my life." "And so, we just refiled Hercules and Leo because one of the beauties of writs of habeas corpus is that because they're protecting fundamental bodily liberty, they allow you to file again and again and again." "And so now we're looking for judges who are willing to all of a sudden see our plaintiff in a different light, and we think that they're out there." "For the first time in history, a judge has recognized animals as legal persons." "New York Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe decreed two chimpanzees held in a research lab at Stony Brook University are covered by a writ of habeas corpus." "Woman:" "The Nonhuman Rights Project has been granted a writ of habeas corpus, requiring the State University of New York to defend its right to keep the primates Hercules and Leo." "The lawsuit was originally filed back in 2013, but was quickly thrown out." "The group has been appealing ever since and their tireless efforts seem to have paid off." "The animal rights group said by granting the writ, the judge implicitly acknowledges apes are persons." "Clearly she's hoping to receive preferential treatment when they take over." "I said, "Shut up!" It's a madhouse!" "Wise:" "A few hours ago, I opened up my email and it said Judge Jaffe in the Supreme Court in Manhattan did issue the writ of habeas corpus and the first... (laughs)" "The first thing I did, is try to remember what date it was in case it was April Fools' Day." "I thought that, uh, maybe really she was tormenting me sending me a fake email, and even then I didn't believe her until she sent me the actual order." "So, I said "Okay, I believe you." "It happened,"" "and I started actually..." "I started crying." "And then I said, "Okay, I'll..." "I'll..." "I'll allow me"" "to cry... myself cry for 20 seconds,"" "and now we got a lot of work to do." "It's amazing." "More on Hercules and Leo." "It's crazy." "Man 1:" "The New York Supreme Court justice ordered a Stony Brook University representative to appear in court in May to respond to the petition." "Man 2:" "Stony Brook told us quote, "Stony Brook University is"" "unable to comment on the referenced lawsuit." "Stony Brook is freaking out for sure." "Okay, now let's see." "This could be a problem." "So, Steve, I got an email from the judge saying that we put out something in our press statement that was misleading." "Somehow..." "What do you think that was?" "The recognition of personhood, because we probably should have said "maybe persons."" "Okay." "So, uh, how are we gonna do this?" "How..." "What are we gonna say then?" "Because if the judge is peeved at all, we don't want to upset her." "Absolutely." "And this is why we're saying," ""Does she really know what she has done here?"" "And obviously she didn't." "Wise:" "Yesterday afternoon, Liddy got an email claiming that the judge on reconsideration hadn't intended to treat Hercules and Leo as persons." "So, what the judge had done was to simply strike out the words and writ of habeas corpus from the original order to show cause and writ of habeas corpus." "But from a legal point of view, there's no difference." "All the Nonhuman Rights Project wants is Stony Brook to come into court and defend their imprisonment of Hercules and Leo." "(whispering)" "Wise:" "Are you there, Liddy?" "Stein:" "I'm here." "Okay." "I'm..." "I'm checking it now." "Okay." "Wise:" "How about their argument, uh, that labor is binding upon them in New York County?" "Stein:" "I didn't get to that." "What page?" "That's on page 13." "Let me take a look at the cases that they cited here." ""Trial courts within this department" ""must follow the determination of the appellate division another department."" "Okay." "That... that's of concern." "That would mean we would lose on Wednesday because Judge Jaffe is going to feel bound to rule against us simply based on what the Tommy court and the Kiko court did." "That's gonna be..." "That's gonna be tough to get around." "(muttering)" "Yes." "(keyboard clicking)" "♪ ♪" "Whoa!" "It's the 50 pounds of files." "What we'd been expecting is that the attorney general's gonna be trying to throw up procedural obstacles, roadblocks so that we never actually get to the issue of personhood." "But I think the attorney general will be confronted with an opponent who's very much more prepared than he is." "Jaffe:" "Good morning and welcome." "We are here for oral argument by the lawyers in this case, and only they have permission to speak." "I thus sign the order in anticipation of hearing both sides address the procedural and substantive issues raised." "I..." "First I want to bring to the..." "To the attention of the court that, uh, my brother was supposed to..." "And in Massachusetts we call the other lawyer "brother" and "sister," and I..." "Sometimes judges don't know what I'm talking about, uh, so..." "I'll..." "If it's all right," "I'll just refer to him as my brother." "Jaffe:" "Hearing no objection?" "I don't ob..." "I do not object." "Okay." "Never had a brother." "So about the appellate division decisions," "Mr. Wise..." "Ye..." "Uh, yes." "I..." "We do have something to say about that." "Yes." "I think you have to address it." "Uh..." "I..." "I..." "Aren't I bound?" "Uh, my brother argues that the..." "That the Lavery and Presti case are binding upon..." "Upon this court." "Now, the State versus Moore case, uh, states that an appellate determination is binding only if it involves quote," ""Settled principles of law and legal issue."" "But the case is indeed ongoing, and we believe that it is reasonably likely that the court of appeals will indeed take further review of... of the Lavery case." "Jaffe:" "Thank you." "We'll turn now to the issue of personhood." "Mr. Coulston?" "Your Honor, there is simply no precedent anywhere of a nonhuman animal receiving the rights..." "Kind of rights they're talking about." "The exceptions that do exist to legal personhood being assigned to something that's not human, in every instance that they have cited, it's something that in some way relates to human interest, whether it's a corporation," "whether a ship is treated as a legal person." "We think that really is the principle that's governing the assignment of legal personhood." "We think that's what the Lavery court said, um, and we think that's the law, Your Honor, and we don't know of any exceptions otherwise and the petitioner hasn't cited any." "Okay thank you." "Um, Mr. Wise?" "Your Honor, to say that... no nonhuman animal has b..." "Has ever been the recipient of a... of a writ of habeas corpus, well, until the Nonhuman Rights Project began filing these suits, no one had ever asked, and the entire hearing has to be looked at in the context of" "extraordinary purpose of..." "Of a writ of habeas corpus." "Uh, it... it is the most important writ in the arsenal of writs that are in..." "In the Anglo-Saxon heritage." "It's... it's not called the Great Writ, capital G, capital W, for nothing." "And the very purpose is to protect autonomous and self-determining beings." "But science has shown us over the last 50 years, especially over the last 20, that there are more autonomous beings in this world than just human beings." "Chimpanzees are not cabined by instinct." "They're self-conscious, they have..." "Have a theory of mind, they can understand what..." "What others are... are thinking, they understand that they're individuals, that their lives mean something to them, which is one of the reasons why imprisoning a chimpanzee is at least as bad and maybe even worse than imprisoning a human being," "because chimpanzees who are in prison and being es..." "Essentially being exploited by..." "By Stony Brook now, uh, that... that they are..." "They don't even know why they're there." "These are the sort of things that we would only do to our worst criminals amongst us, and one thing I want to make clear is that our argument is limited, extremely limited, to the argument that" "Hercules and Leo, these chi... chimpanzees, should be entitled, should be persons solely for the purpose of a common law, a writ of habeas corpus." "Jaffe:" "Thank you." "Understanding what Mr. Wise refers to as the Great Writ and what it means to us and I think, um, another judge of this court many years ago referred to it as a powerful and broad tool subject to expansive interpretation," "and our understanding that the law evolves according to scientific discovery, social morays, uh, witness marital rights." "Uh, isn't it incumbent upon the judiciary to at least consider whether a class of beings may be granted a right or something short of a right under the habeas statute?" "Some kind of special status?" "Thus, why can't a chimpanzee by virtue of the traits documented in petitioner's exhibits, the expert's exhibits, be deemed a person for the sole purposes Mr. Wise says of permitting the writ to the very limited extent sought?" "Why isn't that an appropriate use of this Great Writ?" "Your Honor, um, what has been diminished all along in this proceeding is how different it is, what they're actually trying to do, um, how the similarities that they paint." "Um, you can talk about 99% of DNA and other aspects that create similarities, but the reality is is these are fundamentally, they are different species." "I worry about the diminishment of these rights in some way if we expand them beyond human beings." "Um, I also think courts are simply just not going to be equipped to determine where this new line is going to be for these vague categories that yes, they've given them some ti... scientific heft," "but autonomy and self-determining?" "This just becomes a question of where are we going and then you absolutely are opening the possible floodgates, and it is a Great Writ, but it's been a Great Writ for human beings." "Um, I think it should stay there and I think the ramifications are ones that we can't always foresee and could have a dramatic effect not only on our understanding of how important these rights are to human beings, um, but in applications" "um, that could affect our society in a negative way." "Jaffe:" "Thank you." "(overlapping chatter)" "Man 1:" "Mr. Wise, how did it go?" "Wise:" "If you define a good hearing as one in which the judge asked a lot of questions and clearly giving both sides a..." "A fair, uh, comprehensive listen," "I thought it went great." "Woman:" "What happens now?" "I believe the judge is going to take it under advisement and some time in the next month or two, uh, we should have a... a decision." "Man 2:" "Steven, quick question." "Yeah?" "How significant is the fact that this hearing today even took place, in your words?" "Uh, it is highly significant because a writ of habeas corpus hearing for a nonhuman animal is being held in the same way it would be for a human being, so we're now being..." "Being treated like..." "Like all the other autonomous beings of this... of this world." "So, is this a partial victory?" "It's a partial victory just standing here." "Yes, it..." "Yes." "(cheers and applause)" "Is this a race down to see who gets down first?" "Wise:" "Judges are kind of a conservative bunch." "They don't want to get too far ahead of the rest of society." "But these judges don't quite realize how much society has moved." "Woman 1:" "The boundary between human and animal intelligence is much narrower than we thought." "Woman 2:" "Scientists who study them say, there's a lot more happening there than just play, that their intelligence actually rivals ours." "Woman 3:" "Elephants are certainly one of the most intelligent species in the animal kingdom." "The more we learn about elephant cognition, the more we learn about the evolution of behavior and intelligence in general." "(bellows)" "Wise:" "Wow, this is a hell of a story." ""A recent poll finds" ""one-third of Americans thinks" ""animals should have the same rights as people." "Interesting." ""Across all demographic groups" ""an increasing fraction of people support" ""equal rights for animals." "Stein:" "Oh." ""They say if we can do it for corporations," ""then there's no reason why a sentient living being can't be considered a person."" "Oh, really?" "Oh, my God." "When we weren't looking, we moved into the mainstream." "Stein:" "Holy smokes." "(laughter)" "♪ ♪" "Wise:" "We are on the cusp of a tide." "People are really interested in what we have to say, and I think we've had a huge success already in kind of elevating the idea that you can bring a court case like this and do it in a really serious way." "It's not being treated as something strange or weird." "It's being treated as a regular court case." "And the Nonhuman Rights Project has begun to work with legal groups around the world in Australia, in England, in France, in Argentina, trying to get them to do similar things in their countries." "Because these same tides of freedom, liberty, and equality, you know, are rolling through those countries just like they're rolling through ours and they have been for centuries." "A female orangutan incarcerated in an Argentinian zoo for more than 20 years has been granted some legal rights enjoyed by humans." "Woman:" "The case rested on whether the court decided the orangutan was a person or a thing." "Wise:" "This isn't a static issue." "We view our lawsuits as really a dialogue between us and the judges and we think that there is going to be an evolution of that dialogue." "In fact, there already has been." "♪ ♪" "Wise:" "Winston Churchill gave a speech in 1942 telling the English people it's not the end, and it's not even the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning." "That's what I tell people our suits are about... the end of the beginning." "(bellows)" "(shutter clicks)" "(cage door opening)" "(circus music playing)" "Man:" "Underdog is here!" "(bell ringing)" "(acoustic guitar playing)" "♪ They say every man must need protection ♪" "♪ They say every man must fall ♪" "♪ Yet I swear I see my reflection ♪" "♪ Some place so high above the wall ♪" "♪ I see my light come shining ♪" "♪ From the west down to the east ♪" "♪ Any day now ♪" "♪ Any day now ♪" "♪ I shall be released ♪" "♪ ♪" "♪ I see my light come shining ♪" "♪ From the west down to the east ♪" "♪ Any day now ♪" "♪ Any day now ♪" "♪ I shall be released ♪" "♪ ♪"