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Agency to probe alleged spousal abuse of brain damaged woman
BY MICHAEL MARTINEZ AND PAT KAMPERT
Chicago Tribune
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - (KRT) - A state protection agency for disabled
persons on Wednesday was planning to launch an investigation into
alleged spousal abuse against Terri Schiavo, the severely brain
damaged woman whose feeding tube was reinserted this week after
intervention by the Florida Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush.
The investigation by the Advocacy Center for Persons with
Disabilities, an agency mandated in states and funded by Congress,
could play a decisive role in a revived legal battle over who should
be the guardian of the 39-year-old Schiavo - her husband or her
parents.
Terri Schiavo was moved Wednesday for the second time in two days -
this time back to a Pinellas Park hospice where she was receiving
nourishment again through a feeding tube. Later, Robert Schindler,
her father, said he, his wife and son visited Schiavo for about 45
minutes.
The family was annoyed, Schindler said, that Schiavo had been moved
again from the hospital in nearby Clearwater where she had been
taken on Tuesday.
Schindler said he was happy to see his daughter, but "she looked to
me like a person who has the flu - (someone who would say) don't
bother me," He called his daughter "a really tired girl" and said he
was struck by some redness in her eyes.
Her parents had also been upset by the earlier decision of Michael
Schiavo, Terri Schiavo's husband and guardian, to bar them from
visiting her in the hospital in Clearwater.
"Nothing's different. It's been that way for 10 years," Schindler
said of the battle between his family and Michael Schiavo over
whether Terri Schiavo should be kept alive with a feeding tube or
should die. He made his comments outside the hospice, where Schiavo
had spent the past week after a court approved removal of her
feeding tube.
Even though lawmakers and Bush passed a law Tuesday authorizing the
reinsertion of the feeding tube, her husband has authority, as
guardian, to determine who is allowed to visit her.
The Schindler family has accused Michael Schiavo of abuse and
neglect as guardian, and the state protection agency's independent
investigation could play a major role in removal of the husband as
guardian - as well as shed light on how the husband managed funds
during the guardianship.
Terri Schiavo's husband and her parents have been estranged for a
decade while wrangling over her fate; her husband said that his wife
told him she didn't want extended life-support, but her parents have
disagreed and have sought to keep her connected to a feeding tube.
The law signed Tuesday by Bush requires the chief judge of Pinellas
County Circuit Court to begin proceedings to appoint an independent
guardian. The husband's attorney has called the law unconstitutional
and is expected to initiate a legal challenge.
The chief judge on Wednesday scheduled a Nov. 5 court hearing and
has recommended a public health professor at the University of South
Florida, Jay Wolfson, as the new guardian if the in-laws cannot
agree on a new guardian.
The governor's order of reinsertion of the feeding tube has bought
time for the advocacy center to conduct its investigation as to
whether Terri Schiavo has been a victim of abuse and neglect over
the past 10 years.
Under federal law, the agency is granted strong investigative
powers, including examining medical and court-sealed guardian
financial records, and its findings of abuse or neglect would be
conclusive and pre-emptive of any court or other agency
determination, said Patricia Anderson, an attorney for Terri
Schiavo's parents.
It was unclear Wednesday why the agency hadn't launched an
investigation earlier in the case of Terri Schiavo, who went into a
persistent vegetative state after a heart attack induced by a
misdiagnosed potassium imbalance in 1990. Her eyes are open, but she
is seriously brain damaged, according to doctors.
"They are referred to as the `big sharks´ in the disability field,"
Anderson said of the agency. "What we have here is a guardianship
system that discriminates against disabled people."
Richard LaBelle, an attorney and agency board member who is involved
in the investigation, said this week's events will aid the
investigation.
"I think to the extent that Terri is still alive and will be
receiving food and water - we think that's a positive development,"
he said.
LaBelle said he did not know how long the probe would take, saying
it depended on how much cooperation the agency receives in obtaining
Schiavo's medical records and access to individuals on both sides of
the court fight.
For his part, Michael Schiavo said Wednesday through his attorney
that he is outraged that the legislative and executive branches
would overturn a judge's order that had allowed him to have the
feeding tube removed from his wife.
"It was just an absolute trampling of her personal rights and her
dignity," Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, said Wednesday
on NBC's "Today." "We believe that a court sooner or later, we hope
sooner, will find this law to be unconstitutional."
Felos added it was "an absolute horrible tragedy for Terri Schiavo,
literally being abducted from her deathbed and her death process."
Terri Schiavo was already showing signs of organ failure, Felos
said. The attorney for the parents, however, said that Felos has no
medical background to make such a claim.
One legal expert, Marc Spindelman, an Ohio State University law
professor who specializes in death-and-dying issues, said much is
riding on what the advocacy center finds in its probe into claims by
Terri Schiavo's parents that her husband abused and neglected his
wife.
Those accusations have been strongly denied by Michael Schiavo and
his attorney.
"Should there be a determination that the allegations against
Michael Schiavo are factually supported, it might be the case that
the dispute gets resolved by more informal means," Spindelman said.
Some experts are viewing the case as if it's a foregone conclusion
that the courts will overturn the new law, under the assumption that
Bush, who is President Bush's brother, and the legislature overruled
the courts. But that is not necessarily true, said Andrew Koppelman,
a constitutional law expert at Northwestern University.
"I don't understand what separation of powers has to do with it," he
said. "Some law is going to govern how people behave toward (Terri)
tomorrow. The legislature has to have power to legislate today about
what we do tomorrow, and that power is not taken away by the fact
that the judiciary said something else yesterday."
Koppelman added that the legislature's action may have aided the
Schindlers' case.
"If there is a dispute about the constitutionality of the
legislation or anything else having to do with the appropriateness
of intervention, the court's first duty is to make sure neither side
suffers irreparable injury that couldn't be remedied by subsequent
litigation," he said.
Thus, the argument could be made that to remove nutrition and
hydration before the case winds it way through the courts would
cause Terri Schiavo to suffer "irreparable injury," experts said.
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