We are slipping into a dictatorship of judges. And some judges can be bought and/or blackmailed. I bet Baird has more than one skeleton in his closet.
Posted on Thu, May. 06, 2004
Judge throws out state law keeping Terri Schiavo alive
BY PHIL LONG
Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature violated the privacy rights of a severely brain-damaged woman when they ordered her feeding tube re-inserted to keep her alive last fall, a Clearwater judge ruled today, declaring the controversial ''Terri's Law'' unconstitutional.
''It is difficult to imagine a clearer deprivation of a judicially vested right by retroactive legislation than that which has occurred in this case,'' wrote Pinellas Circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird.
The Legislature, ''can not retroactively create in the governor some previously nonexistent legal interest in controlling Mrs. Schiavo's private medical decisions after those decisions have been finally adjudicated'' in court, Baird wrote in a 23-page decision.
Baird ruled that the law not only violates Terri Schiavo's privacy rights, but also is a violation of the separation of powers prohibiting one branch of government from interfering with another's duties. In this case, Braid ruled, Bush had no right to overrule years of court litigation that led to the courts' decision to remove the feeding tube.
A spokesman for Bush's office said the governor has already filed a notice of appeal with the Second District Court of Appeal, based in Lakeland.
Terri Schiavo, who doctors say is in a persistent vegetative state, has been at the center of a six-year court fight over whether she lives or dies. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, has fought to have the feeding removed, saying his wife told him before the incident that left her brain damaged that she would not want to be kept alive artificially.
Terri Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, have battled to keep their daughter from being allowed to die, saying she never made a clear pronouncement that she would not want to live in her condition, and that she has the right to live.
Last fall, after the feeding tube had been removed by court order, the Legislature passed an emergency law giving Bush the right to order the tube reinserted, which he immediately did.
Michael challenged the law, leading to Thursday's ruling.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8604961.htm?1c
According to this judge, the courts can order the death of innocent people, violate the Constitution, and the other two branches can do nothing to step in and protect citizens.
Unbelievable!