Wait until the bail hearing.
Via NY Times
They may not know it, and they most certainly will not be in attendance, but Hercules and Leo will have their day in court.
A judge in Manhattan has ordered a hearing next month on behalf of Hercules and Leo, a pair of chimpanzees that their legal representatives say are “unlawfully detained” at a university on Long Island.
The order, by Justice Barbara Jaffe of New York State Supreme Court, directed officials at the State University of New York at Stony Brook to show cause for holding the two chimps.
Supporters seemed emboldened by the judge’s decision to sign off on the order, which was drafted by the Nonhuman Rights Project, a group that has been active in promoting a legal theory that some animals — like chimps — are “legal persons” with the right to “bodily liberty.”
Natalie K. Prosin, the executive director of the group, called the judge’s decision “a big step forward for animal rights.”
That said, Justice Jaffe’s decision was largely administrative and gave little if any indication of her feelings on the merits of the case. The group had requested a writ of habeas corpus, a legal means to address the unlawful detention of prisoners. The issuance of the order, Ms. Prosin said, suggests that the judge “believes at minimum that the chimpanzees could be possibly legal persons,” an issue to be taken up at the hearing, on May 6.