Jambo, Kimba, LouLou, Lucky and Missy are wild born African elephants held in an exhibit at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colorado. DePaul Law alumna Jamie McLaughlin (JD ‘21) is assisting with a legal case brought by the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) to free these elephants to a sanctuary where they would have space to exercise their autonomy, including expressing their natural behaviors and roaming a rich natural environment that is as similar as possible to their natural habitat. Her colleague, Jake Davis, will represent the elephants in the oral argument before the Colorado Supreme Court on Thursday, October 24, 2024, and the hearing will be livestreamed through the court’s website. While at DePaul, McLaughlin’s focus was animal law. She worked with Professors Margit Livingston and Emily Winfield, as well as DePaul Center for Animal Law Associate Director Brett Davinger to develop animal law CLE programming. Livingston and Winfield oversaw McLaughlin’s independent study project on nonhuman animals’ legal status, conducted in partnership with the NhRP. The quality of her research led NhRP founder, the late Steve Wise, to ask Jamie to continue with the organization as a law clerk. Dedicated to public interest law, McLaughlin worked pro bono for NhRP through her 3L year, completed the Certificate in Public Interest Law, and received the Dean's Certificate of Service Award for completing more than 50 hours of volunteer work during her time at DePaul. Now she will continue with the NhRP as an associate staff attorney.
In this role, McLaughlin works with her NhRP colleagues to seek recognition of the fundamental legal right to bodily liberty for these five elephants through a common law petition for a writ of habeas corpus. This writ is called the “Great Writ” because it has been used for centuries to challenge unlawful imprisonment in various forms. In the present case, the NhRP is asking Colorado’s highest court to apply habeas corpus to free these captive elephants used for human entertainment at the Zoo. McLaughlin believes that Jambo, Kimba, LouLou, Lucky and Missy have the right to bodily liberty through habeas corpus and that it’s time for courts to be considering the novel legal issue of nonhuman animal rights. Each of these elephants was wild born, captured at ages as young as one or two years old, taken from their families and sent to confinement in zoos or used in circus acts.
Although the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo recently increased the space for these elephants, it is insufficient. African elephants walk an average of 30 miles daily. At the Zoo, these five elephants share less than an acre divided into three exhibits and a two-acre yard that can only be used during the summer. The elephants engage in stereotypies, exhibited by unnatural behaviors, including rocking, swaying and head bobbing, all signs of chronic stress and trauma.
McLaughlin says, “The support I received at DePaul Law was instrumental in getting a position where I could use my skills to advance the law on behalf of legally vulnerable nonhuman animals including Jambo, Kimba, LouLou, Lucky and Missy.” She stresses that animal law factors into almost every type of legal practice including family law, estate planning, criminal law and other subdisciplines. While working toward her dual animal law and environmental law LLM at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, McLaughlin researched the intersections of social justice, the environment and animals. “Achieving nonhuman rights through the legal system is the logical next step of the civil rights movement, and the NhRP is on the forefront of this battle. My experiences at DePaul Law encouraged me to do my part.”