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I said it was wrong to kill her. That is my opinion. Nothing can change it. No list of "facts" will ever change it.

If I may way in, although I'm one of the radical "Jesus Freaks" and "A Charter Member of the St. Terri Battallion," both of which I would be proud of to be, I have some thoughts on all of this. The crux is that this is the life of someone here, a life and death issue. I know we can argue about things like welfare, gun control, WMD's, the Iraq war, pollution, population, and so on. Are they Consitutional, legal, should we do it or not, how much money we should allocate to and so on, we can fight over that with the liberals and yes even amongst ourselves, but the issue of life and death, there are only two choices, right or wrong.

The last I heard, in this country when you are on trial for your life, if there is one doubtful juror, you don't receive a death sentence. The accused receives the benefit of the doubt. Of course, Terri did not even receive the benefit of a trial much less the benefit of the doubt. She was simply snuffed out per a judge's order based on three out of five expert "opinions." It's a shame and a disgrace and a mockery of justice.

Exactly. Again with life and death, you also had a time factor here. Jim Quinn had a good analogy of Terri being like a plane in trouble who declares "MAYDAY." When that happens, the powers that be move Heaven and Earth to save your and anyone else's lives. You get bumped to the top of the stack and the rulebook gets tossed out for the time being. You are the top priority, the rest of the planes can wait, no matter if they are the President or the Pope. Then when you are down and safe, the normal rules resume. I think Jeb blew it, he should have sent State Police or if need be, the National Guard to take over and then deal with the fallout afterwards right at the moment the feeding tube was pulled.

I do agree with you that Terri was denied due process and personally I lack faith in the justice system. I always liked Barry Goldwater's quote, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice ....... and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." Terri's liberty was in jeopardy with the threat to her life and as we know, it was taken away. Justice failed her as well. Even death row inmates get more consideration from the justice system. We are falling down on the job here.

I think that a good measure of a society is how well it treats its weakest members, well we are going down on the road to where they and all of us could be in jeopardy. Here, again, we are falling down on the job. I can go on, but it is hard typing on a laptop with a 16 year old, 13 pound, grey and white cat sitting on my lap and computer. B-) She won't move either.

"The last I heard, in this country when you are on trial for your life, if there is one doubtful juror, you don't receive a death sentence. The accused receives the benefit of the doubt. Of course, Terri did not even receive the benefit of a trial much less the benefit of the doubt. She was simply snuffed out per a judge's order based on three out of five expert "opinions." It's a shame and a disgrace and a mockery of justice."

>>>>"Exactly."

No, not exactly. I don't know who said it, but most people are, and that's why we have such a mess. it shows a complete lack of understanding of what actually happened and why. if we can't clear that up, we just yammer away and ask for politicians' and judges' heads based on flawed premises.

First, the US Supreme court determined that it is up to a state to choose the standard. They don't even have to use "clear and convincing".

If we don't like how that works, and we want the "beyond a reasonable doubt," then don't go complaining to the judges - complain to the state legislature. Florida's had years to fix this. But they waited both times, gave lip service, then blamed the judges.

And we let them get away with it - we scream for impeachment of judges and let the congressmen off.

Second, there were 2 trials - the first in 2001 had her parents on equal footing to determine Terri's wishes. It is a story in itself. I find it hard to judge the results, since I haven't seen the transcripts.

The second with the 5 doctors, well... if you read the transcripts of that one (link on my page), I promise you, if you have a modicum of honesty or sense, you will not be mad at the judges, but at whoever selected Hammesfahr and Maxwell to testify in that trial.

It's time to stop tilting at windmills. If we don't, we're going to lose even more.