And have they used the various legal avenues available to get said hearing expedited? (My guess: no.)
What means would you suggest?
Interesting. Someone who has an obvious and overt personal interest in seeing another person dead can be presumed to be acting in that person's interests when seeking to have the person killed?
That's the problem: you have not demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that said condition actually exists.
That what condition actually exists? Michael has openly and publically stated his intention to marry Jodi, and has openly admitted to being the father of her offspring. As yet no court has entertained this issue, so these facts have not yet been entered into evidence. Nonetheless it would seem difficult to deny them.
As for the fact that he's trying to have Terri killed, I don't think anyone could plausibly deny that.
So we have a guardian who has much to gain personally from his ward's death, and would thus have much to lose if his ward's condition were somehow to improve. If that isn't conflict of interest, please explain to me what is because I must be grossly misunderstanding the term.
One also has to demonstrate that granting guardianship to the Schindlers is likely to generate significant benefit to Terri Schiavo. This is where the Schindlers' continuing associations with quackery clobber them, every time.
From a legal standpoint, isn't the question of whether Michael Schiavo is eligible to remain Terri's guardian largely separate from the question of whether any of the Schindlers would be suitable to take over the role? The statutes which provide for disqualifying a guardian in certain cases do not limit such disqualifications to cases where a suitable person wishes to become guardian.
But, as the guardian and the husband, he has a much better position to actually make his claim than Terri's parents do the contrary.
What puts him in a position to make such a claim is that he was in the room with Terri when she supposedly made her statements. His guardianship now is irrelevant to his proximity to her then.
Judge Greer has declared that the testimony of Michael and his relatives that Terri made some statement not wanting to be hooked up to machines like Karen Ann Quinlan constitutes "clear and compelling" evidence that she would want to be starved and dehydrated.
Bottom line: Michael Schiavo suddenly looks more credible in the eyes of the court than the Schindlers do. If he says "Terri said..." and the parents say, "She couldn't have said..." the judge is going to listen to Michael, because the parents have destroyed their credibility. When a witness impeaches himself, he has one hell of a time reversing the process.
Terri's parents have made some significant mistakes, granted. Largely, I suspect, because they weren't expecting Michael to be such a louse. I don't think the parents so much impeached themselves (at least not in a legal sense) as made themselves and their attourney look somewhat inept, but I will grant that past mistakes can hamper future actions.
At the time she would have had to have made such statements, they could not have been used to justify her starvation or dehydration.
True. However, they can now be used to justify it.
Apparently Judge Greer certainly seems to think so. To me, though, it sure looks like using retroactive legislation to put someone to death. And that sure smells of ex post facto law.
I see no evidence whatsoever that what she meant was "In the event that the legislature decides to allow people to be starved and dehydrated, I'd like that to happen to me."
You may not see it. But Michael Schiavo--the man with more credibility in the court, because he hasn't been caught misleading the court--claims to see it, and the judge is going to pay more attention to it.
So what is the evidence that Terri meant "In the event that..."? Michael never claimed that she actually said such a thing--merely that he believed that when she said that she didn't want to be connected to apparatus such as the life-support (breathing) apparatus Karen Ann Quinlan was connected to, she also intended that should apply to feeding and hydration.
Now a judge may declare that such a belief constitutes "clear and compelling" evidence, but that doesn't in any way shape or form mean that it's actually true.
Generally, when an agreement or declaration is made which includes terms that specifically include some objects and specifically exclude others, changes to the meanings of the terms which would include items formerly excluded or exclude items formerly included may only be made with the explicit consent of both parties or the person making the declaration [changes which include items which were neither included nor excluded before may often be handled implicitly].
In the event that Terri were being kept alive via some technology which did not exist when she made her declaration, it would be plausible to assume that a desire not to receive "life-support" would include a desire not to be kept alive via the new technology. At the time she made her declaration, however, a request not to receive life-support was explicitly not a request not to receive feed and water. Any desire to have the term's meaning extended should have been very explicitly stated, and there is no evidence whatsoever of any such thing.
Michael doesn't claim she said any such thing, and I see no evidence whatsoever--much less "clear and compelling" evidence that she meant such a thing.
Your perception of the evidence is irrelevant. The judge's perception is the relevant perception. And the Schindlers blew their chance in front of the judge.
The Schindlers let themselves get blindsided by a man they thought was going to act in good faith to get their daughter the therapy for which SHE'd won a $700,000 judgement.
Look--I know that if a judge declares that two plus two make five then, legally, two plus two make five. That would not, however, change the fact that in reality two plus two make four.
I do not deny that "Judge Greer facts" are against Terri. What I do deny is that the real facts surrounding Terri and Michael--as opposed to the "Judge Greer facts"--support Michael's claims. Now you may argue that the real facts are legally irrelevant--it's the "Judge Greer facts" that matter. And you may be right in that regard. In that case, though, the question would be how to have some of the useful real facts that favor Terri get the legal weight they deserve.