Given yesterday’s reports on the two hour hearing before U.S. District Judge James Whittemore this shouldn’t be a surprise.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – A federal judge on Tuesday refused to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, denying an emergency request from the brain-damaged woman’s parents.
U.S. District Judge James Whittemore said the 41-year-old woman’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, had not established a “substantial likelihood of success” at trial on the merits of their arguments.
Whittemore wrote that Schiavo’s “life and liberty interests” had been protected by Florida courts. Despite “these difficult and time strained circumstances,” he wrote, “this court is constrained to apply the law to the issues before it.”
Rex Sparklin, an attorney with the law firm representing Terri Schiavo’s parents, said lawyers were immediately appealing to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to “save Terri’s life.” That court was already considering an appeal on whether Terri Schiavo’s right to due process had been violated.While I’m not privy to the Schindler’s lawyers arguments, from the reports I’ve read it appears that their arguments focused on due process rights. In my opinion, given the time constraints, this seems like a strategic error. I continue to believe that the only viable issue on the table (worth arguing in court) is that the “clear and convincing evidence” standard regarding Terri’s wishes has not been met. That directive was established in the Cruzan case before the Supreme Court, and given the new federal standing of the parents seems to be the clearest path to plow in fertile legal territory.
In a new case in the federal courts the burden of proof would be on Michael Schiavo, and a very strong argument could be made that Michael Schiavo has never met the standard in state court where he claimed Terri did not want to be kept alive by machines.
As todays ruling showed, everything else is superfluous.
how can the State deprive her of substance when it is clearly illegal under Florida law to deprive someone of food or water?
Food and water delivered in an assisted fashion is considered “life support” by the Florida state legislature. And they further say that it is legal, when appropriate, to withdraw life support.
Julie
You’d be surprised how many times that long slow morphine needle is given on a yearly basis in hospices, nursing homes, and private care facilities.
Oh well, Gabriel Chapman is so much smarter than I am, since he’s just devastated my point by showing me how I was wrong about the definition of de novo.
Oh wait a minute, no he didn’t. Sorry, my bad.
You can start dancing and celebrating soon, Gabe, Terri will be dead in a day or two.
By the way, who did you have iced? Mom? Grandma?
One need not “ice” anyone to understand how congress has overstepped its role in this particular case. Drop the emotional aspect of the case and what do you have, a very vocal pro-terri segment that pushes conspiracy theories, uses “experts” with questionable credentials (who’s opinions fly in the face of not only conventional wisdom, but generally accepted medical principles), and generally seem incapable of looking at the issue from an objective standpoint. Driven by an odd religious ideology that is highly ignorant of science (not fully unexpected when dealing with zealots), their case for interference falls flat when looked at from a legal standpoint, that’s exactly why the Schindler family has lost nearly all court challenges.
Congress in my view has no right to order a de novo (essentially a “do over” taking into account new evidence) review in this case, as Judge Whitmore correctly ruled, because there is no new evidence, at least none that would change the outcome of Terri’s condition. There are no findings of fact that are in dispute, unless you believe the tinfoil hat crowd who seems to think that Terri will one day rise and recover, or the other idiots who are outright lying about the husband choking her to death, or wanting her dead for the money (what money?) LA Times did a pretty extensive review about PSV today and noted that there is at last count, a single case of a PVS patient recovering and that was back in 1979 with the case of a police officer who had choked on his own vomit, resulting from a gunshot wound to the neck, who later came out of a PSV like state 20 months later. The key being there, 20 months, not 180 months.
As I have said before, just because you don’t like the ruling, doesn’t mean that it was incorrect or that it came to the wrong conclusions. From an ideological standpoint, I don’t like many court rulings, but that doesn’t mean they are incorrect in the eyes of the law. You seem incapable of separating your emotion driven ideology from logic, fact, and law.
If you want to continue to live in this fantasy world where Congress bends the law for pure political gain (at this point I dispute the gain) then by all means please do so, remain one of the brainwashed masses being told how to think instead of thinking for yourself. God forbid you actually challenge your narrow world view that has put you into this groupthink cocoon that allows you to ignore logic and rational thought.
gaBRIel chapmAN
Clash City Rocker:
And you’d be surprised how fast you would be prosecuted for murder. If you haven’t figured it out yet, whether *she* wants to die or not is a contested issue.
Unfortunately Clash is right. Morphine is used quite often to euthanize patients.
Still euthanasia though and still against the law. A law seldom enforced.
been there:
does your response have a purpose?
think Gabe, think
BEen THere
Gee, that was fun. Shall we do anagrams next?
Why do people need mulitple I.D.s is my question. To show (false) “reinforcement” for thier opinions? If so, it indicates weakness, someone in need of a circle that doesn’t, in fact, exist.
My ID is my own. Unlike most people I don’t hide behind a false name. Click my name, and you can find out who I am. I don’t know who Brian is, nor Beth. Regardless, your petty attempt to derail the debate is pointless.
RE: Gabriel Chapman post (March 23, 2005 08:30 AM)
My ID is my own. Unlike most people I don’t hide behind a false name. Click my name, and you can find out who I am. I don’t know who Brian is, nor Beth. Regardless, your petty attempt to derail the debate is pointless.
GAbriel Chapman, they’re on to us. Pack your bags and let’s go raid another site. Our arrows cannot penetrate such armour any more – we have been discredited, utterly.
Your colluding schizophrenic, AnonymousDrivel.
Ha, “Gabriel Chapman,” I don’t know who you allege is “atempting to derail the debate” and/or is “pointless” but that’s enough, right there what you’ve written, to say that you’re off the track, far off in the fifty acre field adjacent to the track, and are facing away from the track.
What is “false” is behavior. And pretense. And, a lot of times, one person detracked will then engender others and you get the phenomenon of a group of users off the track, lost in the field, all wandering in a non productive direction away from the track.
I took the earlier suggestions about permutations of user I.D.’s to indicate that there was a noticable similarity in tone shared or mutually by yours and those by “Brian,” who also, as do you, display more than a trackless regard to others here. So, some of us marvel that you’re trying to run along in the field so far away from the track while the rest of us are actually on the train. And, we can see you from the windows.
Brian is just another howler monkey like you. I was making sport of the simularities in your maner not accusing you of being him. As you pointed out all anyone has to do is click on your name to find out who and what you are.
Sorry to upset you, feel free to go back to screaching and throwing your feces.
I have no idea who beth is. If it’s all the same to Brian I’ll go with a John Cleeseish house wife type female alter ego named Mrs Euphamism.
The van dyke beard should make for quite a nice finishing touch.
“Oooooooooooo, I’m glad I saw you Brian. It reminded me I’ve got to call the plumber about the loo”
I just love drag racing. There’s just something about putting on a frilly frock and driving really fast.
To bad TS-S and her family can’t just hang out and watch old Monty Python movies today.
RE: been there post (March 23, 2005 10:53 AM)
John Cleeseish house wife type female alter ego named Mrs Euphamism.
Classic comic personality. I, of course, preferred the sarcasm and “sledgehammer wit” of B. Faulty. I’ll bet you’re surprised. 😉
Many is the time my wife gave me a sharp BASIL!
There was one time when the person we were unable to protect from murder by dehydration was watching Jhon Clesse “How to Irritate People” with us. She was not only getting all of the jokes she was anticipating them based on the lead in.
Two of the creatures that claimed she had no mind did not even get many of the jokes when the punch line hit. Go figure.