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Terri Schiavo: Treated worse than a convicted murderer
The Tracy Press ^ | April 1, 2005 | Steve Wampler

Posted on 04/02/2005 6:41:28 PM PST by 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.


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KEYWORDS: schiavo
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To: Twinkie
Read Felo's and Greer's lips. This is the groundbreaking case they needed. Now a dangerous precedent is set.

The next time, they will say "we should't let someone die so slowly.. lets just give her a lethal shot and call it done.

Then, once that gets through the system, they will say "Well, ya know, ole grampa's got alzheimers and is not going to get any better.. why wait 5 years till he's PVS to give him the drip?"

This used to be called the "slippery slope". Now I call it "the obvious".
21 posted on 04/03/2005 12:35:31 AM PST by Paloma_55
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To: supercat

. . Oh? . .and who does the teaching? YOU?! You and who else? Felos? Greer? The "expert doctors" who say "nay" or the "expert doctors" who say "yea"?


22 posted on 04/03/2005 4:13:48 AM PDT by Twinkie (For it is written, even the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.)
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To: Paloma_55

Right, Paloma. Exactly. The plan here was to have Terri die a slow agonizing death before the eyes of the world, have it declared legal, and then the "peasants" will be clamoring for it to be done in a more humane and quicker way next time. "Hospice" will become a buzz word for the place where people can get rid of disabled and inconvenient family members real neat and tidy where they are taken over by this bunch.

Do I think the autopsy will be fair? Has anything that has happened so far in this case in that county been fair? I imagine that, too, will uphold the "unfortunate" decision to off Terri.


23 posted on 04/03/2005 4:28:55 AM PDT by Twinkie (For it is written, even the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.)
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To: queenkathy

They must have the jolt cola IV version.


24 posted on 04/03/2005 4:47:07 AM PDT by bvw
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To: sruleoflaw
"***...referring to Michael Schiavo stalking Cindy Shook. It's amazing what the national media doesn't tell us.***"

It is amazing how the national media is lazy, inane, monotone, and pathetically worthless. Actually, if anyone can be described as pvs I'd wager it is the national media.

About the stalking...apparently he used to check Terri's mileage on her car. Nice husband...huh? How many husbands would do that? How many would even care? He's a control freak to the bitter end.

25 posted on 04/03/2005 8:14:58 AM PDT by harpo11 (Sandy Document Stuffed Underwear Berger gets a slap on his wrist.Terri Schiavo got starved to death.)
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To: Twinkie
. . Oh? . .and who does the teaching? YOU?! You and who else? Felos? Greer? The "expert doctors" who say "nay" or the "expert doctors" who say "yea"?

A diagnosis of PVS means nothing more nor less than that a particular doctor is unable to find any stimulus that produces a demonstrably cognitive response. In some cases, the stimuli and responses may be pretty obvious. E.g. say someone's name, and the person may turn to face you and say "Yes?" In other cases, the stimuli and responses can be subtle. Wiggle someone's toe twice and observe that a few seconds later they wiggle it twice. Wiggle it three times an observe that a few seconds later the wiggle it three times. In any case, the harder one looks the more likely one is to find some cognition if it's there. Failing to find anything doesn't mean much if one doesn't look very hard.

I would suggest that a required clinical basis for a dignosis of PVS would be that a doctor who wants to find a patient not to be PVS is unable to find any stimulus that produces a clearly cognitive response. To avoid 'wishful thinking' diagnoses, doctors could be required to produce a testing protocol which would show cognitive abilities that could not be produced by chance. The general notion of the tests would be that a patient would receive stimuli randomly selected from a set chosen by the doctor; the doctor would then have to judge by some form of reaction by patient which stimulus had been given.

As a hypothetical example for Terri's case, Terri could have been played a sequence of voice clips, all with uniform speed and inflection, suggesting that she tense up or relax. If Terri had been able to recognize words, a doctor looking at a polygraph would be able to tell by Terri's reactions which type of clip was played. If Terri hadn't been able to recognize words, the doctor--no matter how much wishful thinking he may have had--would have been unable to distinguish "tense up" from "relax" responses at a rate better than chance.

I don't know how best to arrange the funding for doctors trying to diagnose patients as PVS or not-PVS, but IMHO it might be good to offer a significant incentive for doctors who can show that patients aren't PVS. After all, any fool can declare a patient PVS. In the case of one of Michael's doctors, it wouln't even have been necessary to look at the patient (although an actual visit was insisted upon--the phoniness of the diagnosis would be too obvious if the doctor didn't at least try to make it look credible). Proving someone not to be PVS can be somewhat harder, and should thus be worth more.

26 posted on 04/03/2005 12:43:28 PM PDT by supercat ("Though her life has been sold for corrupt men's gold, she refuses to give up the ghost.")
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To: supercat

I'm sorry, perhaps I'm not academic enough to have been able to tell from your posts where you stand on the subject of euthanasia. Thanks for the information on PVS.

However, from the testimony related by a woman who had actually been in a diagnosed PVS state for a considerable time, it is impossible for the person to "react". Their minds still work just like yours and mine even though x-rays and tests seem to indicate otherwise. - She was on a feeding tube, felt the pain of them pulling it out, (they didn't use any pain medication because they had "diagnosed" her as a vegetable), she was off the feeding tube for eight days, but because of an infection, not because of a husband like Terri. She stated that she was literally screaming inside herself, "Please feed me, I am starving!" She said that the pain they inflicted on her with routine procedures not using pain meds was unbelievable. It was like being locked inside her body unable to move enough or to talk and tell anyone anything. After a while, she came out of it. I don't remember how long it was, but she seemed very intelligent and well spoken, and as I understand it, she hasn't been the only one diagnosed as PVS who has come back to say they were there all the time. I am sure she looked very disconnected on the outside and didn't react properly to anything either. She heard, but could not respond.

Over thiry years ago, I had a Down Syndrome baby. He passed away after surgery when he was six weeks old. I came away from that experience thinking very strongly that many times what is happening on the outside of a person has nothing much to do with what is really going on inside the person. There's so much we don't know.


27 posted on 04/03/2005 1:22:01 PM PDT by Twinkie (For it is written, even the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.)
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To: harpo11

What was the stalking of Cindy Shook about, and when was it supposed to have happened?


28 posted on 04/03/2005 1:24:50 PM PDT by Twinkie (For it is written, even the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.)
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To: Twinkie
Do I think the autopsy will be fair? Has anything that has happened so far in this case in that county been fair? I imagine that, too, will uphold the "unfortunate" decision to off Terri.

Your question reminds me of the situation with gay marriage in Massachusetts and San Francisco.

The folks who have agendas, find the best location to drive that agenda. (ie: judicial activism for their cause)

I imagine Florida is going to become the Euthanasia capital of the world much like San Fran and Boston are becoming the homosexual capitals of the world.
29 posted on 04/03/2005 1:55:50 PM PDT by Paloma_55
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To: Twinkie
I'm sorry, perhaps I'm not academic enough to have been able to tell from your posts where you stand on the subject of euthanasia. Thanks for the information on PVS.

IF there were evidence I tought was clear and compelling that Terri Schiavo would want to be denied artificial feeding and hydration if she fell into a persistent vegetative state, and if I in fact believed that she was in an unrecoverable permanent vegetative state, and if Michael had allowed and would continue to allow efforts at oral feeding/hydration to be made by the parents and people they trusted, then I would not have been opposed to the removal of the feeding tube.

Had even one of those conditions been met, my opposition would have been weaker than it was. Had two been met, it would have been weaker still. But the fact that none of the conditions necessary to justify Terri's execution were satisfied makes it unmistakably clear that it was nothing short of murder.

BTW, how much of an academic would you have to be to recognize my comment in post #18 as bitter sarcasm? There's no way Doctor Cranford would ever say that he dismisses all attempts at communication as being "reflex". From his point of view, he's simply never seen any non-reflexive attempts at communication from any of the patients he's examined--even the one who could sort pegs by color.

30 posted on 04/03/2005 2:06:35 PM PDT by supercat ("Though her life has been sold for corrupt men's gold, she refuses to give up the ghost.")
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To: Twinkie
I'm sorry Twinkie, all I heard the attorney for the Schindler's say was that it was after he broke up with her.

She also indicated that this girlfriend testified that Mr. Schiavo really never knew what Terri wanted and said so several times while they dated each other.

31 posted on 04/04/2005 8:16:26 PM PDT by harpo11 (JC Watts: For some politics navigates faith and others faith navigates politics. Hannity Show 4/4)
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