Terri Schiavo: Treated worse than a convicted murderer

The Tracy Press ^ | April 1, 2005 | Steve Wampler

[sruleoflaw]

By Steve Wampler

Starved to death because of a state judge's order, Terri Schiavo has been treated worse than a convicted murderer.

Suspects on trial for murder cannot be deprived of their lives without being proven guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt." A strong case can be made that this standard was never met to prove Terri Schiavo preferred death to being disabled and was truly in a persistent vegetative state.

Though many courts have reviewed the Schiavo case, the federal and state judges essentially only accepted Florida probate judge George Greer's findings of fact. And Greer showed a blatant disregard for basic legal procedures throughout the case.

Greer allowed Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband at the time of her February 1990 collapse, to remain as her guardian though Michael has since had multiple girlfriends. He has lived with his current fiance, Jodi Centozone, for close to a decade and fathered two children with her. The relationship of Michael to Terri has been a marriage in name only, and even Greer should have been able to see the massive conflict of interest.

Neither was the Florida judge troubled by Michael Schiavo's poor memory. In early statements, Schiavo said Terri had not spoken of any end-of-life directives. However, years after Terri's collapse, and after he had won $1.3 million in medical malpractice and other legal awards, Schiavo suddenly recalled that Terri had allegedly said she wouldn't want extra measures to keep herself alive.

However, Terri never made such comments to any of her family or friends, according to Terri's mother, Mary Schindler. In court testimony, one of Terri's friends, Diane Meyer, recalled a conversation she had with Terri after watching a 1982 movie about Karen Ann Quinlan. Terri told her friend she disagreed with the decision of Quinlan's parents to remove their comatose daughter from a respirator. As Meyer recalls Terri's statement, "Where there's life, there's hope."

If this isn't enough, a woman who dated Michael Schiavo for about a year in the early 1990's, said she has insight on his flip-flop on Terri's wishes. In an April 2001 deposition, Cindy Shook said that when she asked Michael about Terri's end-of-life wishes, he responded: "How the hell should I know? We never spoke about this. My God, I was only 25 years old. How the hell should I know? We were young. We never spoke of this..."

More than $700,000 of the $1.3 million in settlement money was placed into a trust fund to cover Terri's therapy and medical expenses. But since 1992, Terri received no therapy or rehabilitation. Where has the money gone?

More than half of the trust fund money, with the permission of Greer, has been used to pay noted right-to-die attorney George Felos ($358,434) and another attorney retained by Michael Schiavo, Deborah Bushnell ($80,309). In effect, the money awarded by a jury for Terri's therapy has been used by her "husband" to pay lawyers to help terminate her life.

Nurses who have worked with Terri state that Michael Schiavo has publicly wished for Terri to die. According to the September 2003 deposition of Carla Iyer, who cared for Terri from April 1995 to August 1996, Michael asked "Can't you do anything to accelerate her death?" and "When is that b____ gonna die?"

Michael Schiavo has also refused, with the consent of Greer, to have basic medical tests performed upon Terri. For example, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans are considered standard tools for assessing the extent of brain injuries. Terri never received either test.

When Dr. Peter Morin, a neurologist who specializes in degenerative brain diseases and who has an M.D. and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Boston University, learned of this information, he offered a sharp reaction to an interviewer.

"That's criminal," he said. "How can he continue as guardian? People are deliberating over this woman's life and death and there's been no MRI or PET." Morin's conclusion: "These people (Michael Schiavo, George Felos and Judge Greer) don't want the information."

Dr. William Cheshire, a neurologist with the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., was asked to study Terri's case for the Florida statewide Adult Protective Services. Chesire came into the case believing it was ethically permissible to discontinue food and water to people in a permanent vegetative state.

After studying Terri's case and meeting her, Chesire concluded: "As I looked at Terri and she gazed directly back at me, I asked myself whether, if I were her attending physician, I could in good conscience withdraw her feeding and hydration. No, I could not...I could not withhold life-sustaining nutrition and hydration from this beautiful lady whose face brightens in the presence of others."

According to Rev. Robert Johansen of the Kalamazoo, Mich. Catholic diocese, almost 50 neurologists all had the same assessment: Terri should be reevaluated and there are grave doubts about the accuracy of Terri's PVS diagnosis. All of these neurologists are board-certified, some are fellows of the prestigious American Academy of Neurology and several are professors of neurology at major medical schools.

When Congress asked Greer under subpoena to keep Terri alive to be a witness, he thumbed his nose. When Congress instructed the federal courts (which are set up by Congress) to take a new look at Terri's entire case, U.S. District Judge James Whittemore and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals refused.

Many U.S. newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times, all shamefully editorialized in support of withdrawing food and water from an innocent, disabled woman. What they didn't do was accurately or fairly report this story.

If Michael Schiavo wasn't such a callous person; if the judiciary wasn't so tyrannical and had a little common sense; and if our nation's media reported both sides of this story, maybe someone could have come up with a humane solution -- letting Bob and Mary Schindler love and care for their daughter, Terri.

_______________________________

Steve Wampler, a Tracy resident, hosts a weekend radio talk show on CBC (770 AM). He holds a master's degree in political science from the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. His show is heard live on Sundays at 8 p.m. and on a rebroadcast basis (at 50,000 watts) throughout much of Northern California on Saturdays at 3 p.m.

[Diogenesis]

Pinellas county, Florida subhuman murderer uncertified Judgenfuhrer Greer:
"You miserable un-blackroben-microbes had better learn that I am exempt from ALL rules.
I did not even take the oath of office.
The US Constitution - I ignored it.
18 USC Section 1505 - I ignored it.
Title 2 of the US code - I ignored it.
Florida Statute 765.309 which prevents mercy killing and assisted suicide - I ignored it.
Florida Statute 744.3215 which requires that incapacitated people cannot be deprived of food and water - I ignored it.
Florida Statute 765.404, which says that clear and convincing evidence of the ward's intent for medical treatment must be established - I ignored it..
I conspired to murder Terri to celebrate Holocaust Remembrance Month.
So what are you --and the gonadless pussies in Congress-- dare gonna do about it?"

[Paloma_55]

Even a convicted murderer gets their last meal on the same day they die.

[sruleoflaw]

Thank you. Good point. And they also get their own lawyer. Terri had neither a last meal on the day she died or her own lawyer.

[Diogenesis]

"Even a convicted murderer gets their last meal on the same day they die."

HEALTHFUL DRINKS WITH WARM MEALS SINCE THE ORDER-TO-MURDER-AN-INVALID BY JUDGE GREER
Subhuman scumbag Torturer and Murderer-At-Will Pinellas County Judgenfuhrer Greer ..... 65
..................................................................... Terri Shiavo 0
...................................................................... Lee Malvo 49
................................................................. Scott Peterson 48

Official flag of Pinellas county, Florida - The State of Human Torture and Prolonged Starvation

[Twinkie]

Something is rotten, and it's not in Denmark. I plan to contact Tom DeLay's office and demand they impeach Greer for contempt of Congress and for the deplorable way in which he has deprived Terri of her Constitutional rights.

Read Felo's and Greer's lips. This is the groundbreaking case they needed. Now a dangerous precedent is set. The case will be cited in order to make more of the same rulings where someone is inconvenient to someone else. If Terri had been totally comatose, hooked up to every kind of artificial life support imaginable for all that time, and Mikey had been the tragic, doting husband without the conflict of interest presented by a whole new family, it would have been another matter altogether to pull the plugs on an unconscious and irreversibly truly comatose person with a machine breathing for them after a reasonable time. This was not true of Terri!

Terri was, even to the eye of the casual observer, not unconscious. People who have come back from diagnosed PVS conditions tell of knowing everything, of being hungry or in pain and not being able to vocalize or gesture about it. The only blessing I can see out of all of this is that Terri is out of the clutches of that man! The fact that he will have her ashes and is reported to be planning to not even allow her family to know where she will be buried or to visit the grave is unfathomable. I feel pretty confident that Felos suggested that so that Terri's grave would not become a rallying point for "right to life" Christian fundamentalists.

[queenkathy]

Good sidebar article there about Greer not being there legally. Not filing his oath of office etc. And i wonder what has been done about this, now that it's too late for Terri. Everything done in darkness will come to light.

[queenkathy]

Why do you post this on every thread...????

[bvw]

No valid rule of law produces a judicial order for murder. It was an illegal order, no matter how perfectly it may have crossed every legal t and dotted every i. There's NO sense even to pulling it apart further than to see what it is on the face of it -- a murder -- probate judge Greer directly ordered Terri to be murdered by the hideous process starvation, starvation in front of her parents and loving family.

[queenkathy]

I smell a troll

[queenkathy]

oops! There...Now I smell a troll...

[Cboldt]

However, he has read the transcripts and the entire court records ...

From the man's web page ...

I'll offer one final thought in this area. I remain befuddled that while hundreds of documents and other items concerning Terri and Michael have been replicated time and again across the Internet, prompting people around the world to second-guess the trial's result, the transcripts of the trial itself are not among the items in circulation. How can that be? Surely the parties have copies of the trial transcript. Shouldn't it be the one thing everyone should want to see before attempting to cast judgment on the propriety of the trial's result?

He also accepts Greer's conclusion that Terri was 11 or 12 years old when she made comments to her friend and to her mother, without fleshing out the controversy there. That controversy is quite important to the ultimate conclusion.

I will give the fellow credit for putting some of the basic legal errors to rest, but the website does not present a balanced view, in my opinion.

And, I blame the judges before I blame the legislature, although none of the branches of government is blameless in this miscarriage of justice.

[Incorrigible]

[queenkathy]

The moderators are doing a fantastic job this week. Don't ya think? They are really on top of things.

[harpo11]

Excellent post.

"If this isn't enough, a woman who dated Michael Schiavo for about a year in the early 1990's, said she has insight on his flip-flop on Terri's wishes. In an April 2001 deposition, Cindy Shook said"

I heard the Schindler's previous attorney, Pam Anderson, on a talk show today, Barbara Simpson Radio show, KSFO 560 AM, say that Cindy Shook, when she broke up with Michael Schiavo, Michael stalked her and used his car to cut her off while she was driving.

Now didn't another nurse, Carla Iyer, say on the Sean Hannity Show that Micael threatened her as well, and to watch out while she was driving?

Just stating what I heard.

[harpo11]

Excellent post.

"If this isn't enough, a woman who dated Michael Schiavo for about a year in the early 1990's, said she has insight on his flip-flop on Terri's wishes. In an April 2001 deposition, Cindy Shook said"

I heard the Schindler's previous attorney, Pam Anderson, on a talk show today, Barbara Simpson Radio show, KSFO 560 AM, say that Cindy Shook, when she broke up with Michael Schiavo, Michael stalked her and used his car to cut her off while she was driving.

Now didn't another nurse, Carla Iyer, say on the Sean Hannity Show that Micael threatened her as well, and to watch out while she was driving?

Just stating what I heard.

[supercat]

Terri was, even to the eye of the casual observer, not unconscious.

Of course, casual observers haven't been taught to ignore all efforts to communicate as "reflex".

[supercat]

Surely the parties have copies of the trial transcript. Shouldn't it be the one thing everyone should want to see before attempting to cast judgment on the propriety of the trial's result?

Very likely, the Schindlers' lawyers were inept during the early trials. Consequently, they failed to ask the questions that needed to be asked, and so some of Greer's decisions were probably reasonable.

On the other hand, the state's duty to protect its citizens from being murdered should not be contingent upon those citizens' parents hiring good legal counsel. I see no just reason why a person should have to suffer for mistakes made by legal counsel over whom they had no control.

[sruleoflaw]

Thanks. That's an excellent point about what Pam Anderson said, referring to Michael Schiavo stalking Cindy Shook. It's amazing what the national media doesn't tell us.