Posted on 03/22/2005 9:19:02 PM PST by ambrose
Lawyer: Schiavo Ruling Expected Soon
By JILL BARTON Tuesday, March 22, 2005
TAMPA, Fla. - Warning that Terri Schiavo was "fading quickly" and might die at any moment, her parents begged a federal appeals court Tuesday to order the severely brain-damaged woman's feeding tube reinserted.
The appeals court didn't indicate when it might rule, but George Felos, the attorney for Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, told the Associated Press that he expected a decision before daybreak Wednesday.
An attorney for parents Bob and Mary Schindler said in a court filing that the 41-year-old woman might die before they could get a chance to fully argue their case that her rights are being violated. The appeal came after a federal judge in Tampa rejected the parents' emergency request.
"Where, as here, death is imminent, it is hard to imagine more critical and exigent circumstances," lawyer David Gibbs III said in the appeal filed electronically with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. "Terri is fading quickly and her parents reasonably fear that her death is imminent."
Even before the parents' appeal was filed, Michael Schiavo urged the 11th Circuit not to grant an emergency request to restore nutrition.
"That would be a horrific intrusion upon Mrs. Schiavo's personal liberty," Felos said in the filing. He filed a response to the Schindlers' appeal and said he would go to the U.S. Supreme Court if the tube were ordered reconnected.
The Schindlers have been locked for years in a battle with Schiavo's husband over whether her feeding tube should be disconnected. State courts have sided with Michael Schiavo, who insists his wife told him she would never want to be kept alive artificially.
Late in the afternoon, the Schindlers arrived at the hospice, and Terri's mother again pleaded with state lawmakers to save her daughter's life.
"Please, senators, for the love of God, I'm begging you, don't let my daughter die of thirst," Mary Schindler said.
With that, she broke down and was escorted away.
In court documents, the couple said their daughter began "a significant decline" late Monday. Her eyes were sunken and dark, and her lips and face were dry.
"While she still made eye contact with me when I spoke to her, she was becoming increasingly lethargic," Bob Schindler said in the papers. "Terri no longer attempted to verbalize back to me when I spoke to her."
The feeding tube was disconnected on Friday. Doctors have said Terri Schiavo could survive one to two weeks without water and nutrients.
Louise Cleary, a spokeswoman at Woodside Hospice, said she could not discuss Terri Schiavo's condition for reasons of privacy.
Over the weekend, Republicans in Congress pushed through unprecedented emergency legislation aimed at prolonging Schiavo's life by allowing the case to be reviewed by federal courts.
However, early Tuesday, U.S. District Judge James Whittemore of Tampa rejected the parents' emergency request under that legislation to have the tube reconnected, saying they had not established that they would probably prevail at a trial on their claim that Terri Schiavo's religious and due process rights have been violated.
Bobby Schindler, her brother, said his family was crushed.
"To have to see my parents go through this is absolutely barbaric," he said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I'd love for these judges to sit in a room and see this happening as well."
By mid-afternoon, about 75 protesters gathered outside the hospice, virtually all of them upset with Whittemore's decision. They carried signs and shouted through bullhorns, and a Catholic Mass was celebrated. One woman was arrested for trespassing after trying to bring Schiavo a cup of water.
Among those supporting the federal judge's decision was Richard Avant, who lives down the street from the hospice and carried a sign reading "Honor her wishes."
"We represent the silent majority, if you look at the polls," Avant said. "We agree that Congress overstepped their bounds."
The Bush administration "would have preferred a different ruling" from the federal judge, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in Albuquerque, N.M., where the president was visiting a senior center. "We hope that they would be able to have relief through the appeals process."
The Justice Department also filed a court statement, saying an injunction was "plainly warranted" to carry out the wishes of Congress to provide federal court jurisdiction over the case.
Unless the feeding tube is reinserted, the department said, Schiavo may die before the courts can resolve her family's claims. "No comparable harm will be caused" by letting Schiavo live while the case is reviewed, the filing said.
At the same time, Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, praised the ruling. "What this judge did is protect the freedom of people to make their own end-of-life decisions without the intrusion of politicians," he said.
Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped briefly from a chemical imbalance believed to have been brought on by an eating disorder. Court-appointed doctors say she is in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery.
Her parents argue that she could get better and that she would never have wanted to be cut off from food and water.
Or your heater.
You're treating it like an award. "Eagle Scout" is something you earn. "Christian" is a slanderous label among the wretched, a cross we are tempted to hide from the world to avoid teasing and mocking, even death.
Only in a few places on earth can we say it proudly and safely. It's abnormal.
"Deserve"? Don't be so proud of yourself.
Actually, I have both.
You have a point, there are people who are Christians in spite of there theology or ideology. Some may even be democrats...
But then they wouldn't be Biblical Christians, maybe saved by the skin of there teeth. :(
I didn't know he was Italian. I always thought it was very strange how he was able to get away with this for so long and have so many people help him torture and kill his wife. But a connection with the mafia would explain a lot.
thanks
Did the courts make a determination as to what Terri wanted?
No, you're not the only one. My husband's a truck driver and the only time he's gotten mugged was in Fla. so its not high on my list of preferred vacation spots (again, this is not to say that each and every resident is a mugger). Seems like the "powers that be" who won't listen to a plea for morality do sometimes listen when their finances are threatened.
Your brother-in-law and your family are in my prayers.
The last thing Terry Randall should have done was jump in with the slander and innuendo against them. Whether or not the rest of the country knew these men or not didn't matter. We know them to be good men. And we turned our backs on a movement claiming to be Christian but that seemed quite willing to lie about facts and slander good men like Judge Greer. There are over 2 million people in this part of our little peninsula. If a different tack had been taken by the organizers of this circus, there would be 50,000 Pinellas County citizens outside that Hospice right now. But that's not the case is it?
Now you know why.
Maybe we could cut Florida off from the rest of the country. Just kind of cut it loose, to float off into the Caribbean where it belongs.
That's a grave insult to me and 11 million other Floridian citizens!!!
Maybe we should send you back to Berkeley where you came from???
If there is respite in this ordeal, I intend to look more closely at the laws in my own state.
Any time you have to appeal a matter your butt is already in the burner. However, I don't think one can predict an outcome one way or another based on the time taken by a court. In addition, we are talking about a three judge panel. The logistics of accessing the electronically filed pleadings, arranging conference calls, etc. just add time to things like this. I would suspect that regardless of the decision of the court, it would provide some form of written opinion. No memorandum type rulings on this one.
Why doesn't the family just go and give her water? Would you sit by if it was your daughter and you felt the way this family does? They would have had to kill me before I let them remove the feeding tube.
The appellate court clearly has something to say on this at length, or they can't decide and are conflicted, or disagree with each other, and are venting. I suspect they and they clerks are using the F word a lot when thinking about Gibbs. If I were clerk there, I would have his face up as a dart board, if only for keeping me up all night without being eligible for overtime pay.
Your rhetoric is so vitriolic one might have a hard time coming to the conclusion that you are a Christian. Tone it down. Your behavior is really presenting a sad reflection of christianity.
If starvation will cause Terri to suffer, don't we also have to assume that she can and does experience pain on a daily basis (even prior to removal of the feeding tube)?
If she's suffering pain now, then you have to allow that she may suffer pain all the time. A life of constant, unending pain, possibly.
Also, I thought I heard on TV that she is medicated now so she is not feeling pain.
The country actually has witness some of Judge Greer's fine work. I don't give a rat's rearend whose courtroom you have been in or who you know. You are defending a man that has allowed hearsay as clear and convincing evidence. He is a legal hack that gave substantial weight to the testimony of a euthanasia activist doctor and dismissed the opinions of others.
Save it.
Your behavior on this thread is idiotic and childish. Take a break and get some rest.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.