Mark
Bottom of Form / The Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Fla.) (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service), March 16, 2005 pNA
Appellatecourt rules against parents of Terri Schiavo.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 The Orlando Sentinel
Byline: Maya Bell and Sean Mussenden
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. _ With time running short, the parents of Terri Schiavo lost two key court decisions Wednesday, leaving their best hope with lawmakers in Tallahassee and Washington who struggled to come up legislation to keep their daughter alive.
Bob and Mary Schindler's options under existing law all but disappeared when an appellatecourt issued back-to-back rulings that pave the way for their daughter's feeding tube to be removed as scheduled at 1 p.m. EST Friday.
The 2nd District Court of Appeal, signaling its growing impatience with the Schindlers also defended Pinellas Circuit Judge George W. Greer, who five years ago ruled that the severely brain-damaged woman would choose not to be kept alive by artificial means.
In one decision, the appellatecourt refused to set aside Greer's original ruling that there was clear and convincing evidence that, though she never wrote them down, Terri Schiavo made her wishes known through casual conversations with her husband, Michael Schiavo, and others.
In its other order, the appellatecourt refused an emergency request by the Florida Department of Children & Families to halt the feeding tube's withdrawal while the agency appeals Greer's decision barring it from intervening in the case.
In Tallahassee, lawmakers late Wednesday were trying to craft a compromise designed to prevent the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube. But many senators, Republicans and Democrats alike, questioned whether the Legislature should intervene in the case for the second time in two years.
"I think the attitude of the Republicans I've spoken to, they're saying, `we tried to do something last time, we acted as decisively as we knew how to intervene and the law was declared unconstitutional,'" said Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville. "Maybe it's time we step back and assume that the wishes determined by the court were her last wishes."
In the appellatecourt, the Schindlers attorneys had argued that Greer's original February 2000 order calling for the removal of their daughter' feeding tube should be voided because Greer violated their daughter's due process rights to reach it. But in some of its clearest language yet, the appellatecourt firmly disagreed.
"Not only has Mrs. Schiavo's case been given due process, but few, if any, similar cases have ever been afforded this heightened level of process," the court wrote. "The Schindlers have filed numerous motions, but they have failed to present any lawful basis for relief from judgment."
The court decisions dealt a double blow to the Schindlers but were not entirely unexpected. Proclaiming their "legal avenues in Florida exhausted," one of their lawyers, Barbara Weller, said their next stop would be the U.S. Supreme Court, where the Schindlers will seek a stay from Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Weller said the parents hope to appeal the due-process claims and another failed claim that the withdrawal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube violates her religious rights.
In Tallahassee Thursday, the House and Senate are scheduled to bring to the floor two versions of a Schiavo bill. But the Senate opposition left it unclear whether the Legislature will act before Friday's deadline.
In general, both bills would stop a guardian from removing a person in a persistent vegetative state from a feeding tube to allow them to die, unless that person's living will made clear that they did not want to be kept alive with artificial sustenance.
But the broader House version would apply to anyone in a persistent vegetative state, while the narrower Senate version would apply only in cases where family members disagreed over the person's end of life wishes.
In 2003, the Legislature passed "Terri's Law," allowing Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to restore her feeding tube. In overturning it, the Florida Supreme Court found problematic the fact that the law applied only to Schiavo. House negotiators fear that the narrowly tailored Senate version might again fail a Supreme Court test.
Just how a Florida law would work was unclear, but some legal scholars said current versions were likely unconstitutional as applied to Terri Schiavo, which could enable Greer to stick to his prior ruling.
"He (Greer) could look at it and say, `This is unconstitutional and, therefore, my order stays in place,'" said Mike Allen, a law professor at StetsonUniversity.
In Washington, meanwhile, lawmakers also were searching for options to prevent Schiavo's death. Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., said House GOP leaders agreed late Wednesday to hold a vote Thursday on a new version of a Schiavo bill.
Weldon and Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., had proposed federal hearings for all cases like Schiavo's to determine whether due process rights have been protected by state courts.
But Weldon said some of his colleagues were worried death row defense lawyers would abuse the new law. So House Republican leaders on Wednesday proposed a bill that will remove cases like Schiavo's from state court, allowing parents or anyone else with a close relationship could get a hearing in federal court before her feeding tube can be removed.
The Senate is considering a so-called "private-relief bill" that would deal just with Schiavo.
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)
As the legal and legislative maneuvering continued, pro-life activists gathered outside the Pinellas Park hospice where Terri Schiavo has lived for five years and vowed to bring thousands of opponents to the area if her feeding tube is withdrawn.
"We're preparing for an event we hope never happens," said the Rev. Pat Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition.
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(Orlando Sentinel correspondent Tamara Lytle contributed to this report.)
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(c) 2005, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).
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