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Dear John,

Today the NhRP filed a brief with New York’s highest court in our habeas corpus case demanding the right to bodily liberty of an elephant named Happy [[link removed]] held alone in captivity in the Bronx Zoo.

In May, the New York Court of Appeals—one of the most influential state courts in the US— agreed [[link removed]] to consider the NhRP’s arguments on behalf of Happy the elephant, thereby marking the first time in world history that the highest court of an English-speaking jurisdiction will hear a case that demands that a nonhuman animal be given a legal right.

The NhRP’s 14,000-word brief [[link removed]] brings together centuries of case law including landmark common law and civil rights cases, the science of elephant cognition and behavior, the origin of legal rights, judicial rulings from outside the US that have granted rights to nonhuman animals, and ethical arguments against elephant captivity. The NhRP is urging the Court to end Happy’s imprisonment as a rightless legal “thing” and recognize her fundamental right to bodily liberty protected by the common law of habeas corpus. A ruling in Happy’s favor would require her release from the Bronx Zoo to an elephant sanctuary “where her autonomy may be realized to the greatest extent possible.”

This is the only decision that New York’s Court of Appeals Court can make that is consistent with New York’s common law of habeas corpus, which, as world-renowned legal scholar Laurence Tribe has written [[link removed]] in support of Happy’s freedom, “has a noble tradition of expanding the ranks of rights holders." With your help, we’ve made legal history with Happy’s case as well as tremendous progress in the worldwide struggle for nonhuman animal rights.

Please join the NhRP’s president and founder Steven M. Wise along with Happy’s New York counsel Liddy Stein on Tuesday, July 13th for a Zoom seminar on the arguments in our brief, why this brief is important, and what’s to come in Happy’s case.

Date: Tuesday, July 13th
Time: 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT (check for your local time here [[link removed]] )

Please click here to register for the Zoom seminar. [[link removed]]

If you have any questions you’d like answered about Happy’s case, please feel free to email us ahead of time at [email protected] [[email protected]] . You may also ask them live via the Zoom chat window towards the end of the seminar. This seminar will be recorded and posted to our YouTube channel [[link removed]] for you to rewatch and share afterwards.

You can help by sharing this announcement widely using this blog post link [[link removed]] or our posts on Facebook [[link removed]] , Instagram [[link removed]] , Twitter [[link removed]] , and LinkedIn [[link removed]] .

Looking forward to seeing you next Tuesday,

Mickey Suzuki
Development Director, the NhRP

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