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 Hercules and Leo, the research chimpanzees whom an animal rights group went to court to set free, will stay put because chimps aren't "legal persons," a New York judge ruled Thursday. 
 
 The Nonhuman Rights Project, a non-profit activist group in Coral Springs, Florida, sued on behalf of the 8-year-old chimps in March, arguing that they're autonomous, intelligent creatures and that holding them at the State University of New York at Stony Brook is illegal imprisonment. It said Thursday it would appeal the ruling. 
 
 In a ruling filed Thursday in Manhattan, New York State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe turned down the group's request to approve a writ of habeas corpus — the legal mechanism under which people are freed from unlawful detention. But she indicated that she sympathized with Hercules, Leo and their supporters. ||||| NEW YORK (AP) — Two chimpanzees will not be freed from a New York state university where they're used in locomotion studies after a court decision Thursday dismissed a lawsuit that had sought to afford them legal personhood rights. 
 
 FILE- This Oct. 29, 2014, file photo shows Tommy, a chimpanzee, smiling at his home in Gloversville, N.Y. The two chimpanzees Hercules and Leo will not be freed from a New York state university where... (Associated Press) 
 
 While the Nonhuman Rights Project had standing to bring the lawsuit on behalf of 8-year-old chimpanzees Hercules and Leo, a higher court decision last year that found a chimpanzee named Tommy was property, not a person, necessitated the lawsuit be tossed, State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe wrote in her decision. 
 
 "Efforts to extend legal rights to chimpanzees are thus understandable; some day they may even succeed," she wrote in a 33-page decision. "For now, however, given the precedent to which I am bound, it is hereby ordered, that the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is denied and the proceeding is dismissed." 
 
 A representative for the Nonhuman Rights Project didn't immediately return a request for comment. 
 
 In May, a lawyer for the group argued before a packed Manhattan courtroom that Hercules and Leo should be removed from the Stony Brook University on Long Island to a sanctuary in Florida. 
 
 Attorney Steven Wise said then that chimpanzees, which are biologically similar to humans, are "autonomous and self-determining beings" and thus deserve similar legal rights. He likened their confinement at the university to slavery, the involuntary detention of people with mental illnesses and imprisonment. 
 
 But an assistant attorney general, representing the state university system, argued that not only was the venue improper, but that chimpanzees were not entitled to legal personhood rights because they could not fulfill the responsibilities of people in society. 
 
 Wise filed hundreds of pages of expert opinions from academics, zoologists, biologists and others he said supported the claim that cognitively, chimpanzees — along with dolphins, bonobos, orangutans and elephants — are advanced species.
– Two chimpanzees being used for mobility research at Stony Brook University in New York will not be released to a sanctuary because a state supreme court judge has dismissed the lawsuit seeking to grant them personhood. The reason comes down to legal precedent: A higher court ruled last year that another chimpanzee, Tommy, is property, not a person, reports the AP. In May, a lawyer had argued in court for the Nonhuman Rights Project that 8-year-old chimps Hercules and Leo are "autonomous and self-determining beings" that deserve similar rights as humans. He presented hundreds of pages of opinions from a range of experts like zoologists and biologists who all felt similarly: cognitively, chimps are an advanced species. In a somewhat sympathetic 33-page decision, State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe called the effort to extend rights to chimps "understandable" and noted such a suit may one day succeed, giving the reasoning that "legal person" and "human being" aren't necessarily synonymous, reports NBC News. But she added: "The past mistreatment of humans, whether slaves, women, indigenous people or others, as property, does not, however, serve as a legal predicate or appropriate analogy for extending to nonhumans the status of legal personhood." The group plans to appeal the decision, reports the Wall Street Journal, which notes that more lawsuits are likely to be filed on behalf of animals held in captivity. Hercules and Leo have been held by Stony Brook since 2010. (See why this grandma is suing SeaWorld.)