Posted on 03/21/2005 2:45:19 PM PST by AntiGuv
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) -- Armed with a new law rushed through Congress over the weekend, the attorney for Terri Schiavo's parents pleaded with a judge Monday to order the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube reinserted.
U.S. District Judge James Whittemore did not immediately make a ruling after the two-hour hearing, and he gave no indication on when he might act on the request.
The hearing came three days after the feeding tube was removed. Doctors have said Schiavo could survive one to two weeks without the tube.
During the hearing, David Gibbs, an attorney for the parents, said that forcing Terri Schiavo to die by starvation and dehydration would be "a mortal sin" under her Roman Catholic beliefs.
"It is a complete violation to her rights and to her religious liberty, to force her in a position of refusing nutrition," Gibbs told Whittemore.
But the judge told Gibbs that he still wasn't completely sold on the argument. "I think you'd be hard-pressed to convince me that you have a substantial likelihood" of the parents' lawsuit succeeding, the judge said.
George Felos, one of the attorneys for husband Michael Schiavo, told Whittemore that the case has been aired thoroughly in state courts and that forcing the 41-year-old severely brain damaged woman to endure another re-insertion of the tube would violate her civil rights.
"Every possible issue has been raised and re-raised, litigated and re-litigated," Felos said. "It's the elongation of these proceedings that have violated Mrs. Schiavo's due process rights."
Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed at 1:45 p.m. Friday, the third such time she had begun what Felos described as "her dying process." On both previous occasions, the tube was re-inserted by court order.
That is why a writ will be filed tomorrow afternoon if the feeding is not ordered by them, irrespective of whether the judge rules or not. The judge wants Terri to die I think, but doesn't want to be reserved in a bitch slap way by the 11th circuit. Thus he is pondering the matter, and looking and asking for precedents.
Yes, the part that bothers me the most about this whole legal thing is the fact that the judge has forbidden the nurses to feed Terry (by mouth). If that doesn't constitute murder, I don't know what does.
Greer denied the validity of US government process. I think it's fair for the US government to deny his validity in response.
What happened in 1990 is, and may remain, a mystery even if Terri recovers. The criminal actions by Michael, Felos, and Greer since then, however, are no mystery. There is every reason to believe Terri's condition would almost certainly improve at least somewhat (impossible to tell how much) if Michael weren't preventing it. It would be fair to call the guy a monster for that alone, though of course he's a monster in many other ways as well.
Um.
At the risk of being told to mind my own beeswax....
The Republicans need to pick up part of the blame.
They're not playing the game as if it's life and death.
They need to accept they may not be here next time around and have a scorced-earth policy.
Democrats threaten filibuster? Fine. Let 'em.
Democrats filibuster? Fine. Let 'em.
Make them spend every minute tied up. Remind them to bring their teddy bears (ugh), and hot cocoa. And have those bathroom things brought right into the building, if the Democrats say there are not enough facilities.
Our founding fathers may have been only too human, but they did know what it would cost to start this endeavor we call a Republic.
And the people in the Republican party need to accept it will get very, very ugly before it's over.
If the people refuse to make the sacrifice, our leadership surely will not want to make the sacrifice.
And that sacrifice may very well be knowing when we stand for something we may get voted out.
But you go for the goal.
By stretching it out, he ends it by killing Terri.
"Well right now I bet the judge has asked for more case law about the rule of injunctions where there is at once no substantial liklihood of prevailing on the merits but also ensuing mootness, and whether his denial of the injunction would be reversible error. He wants to keep the tube out, but does not want to be bitched slapped 12 hours later by the 11th circuit based on something that would embarrass him for not catching. That is my speculation. I think it is good speculation myself. I like it. :)"
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I think "substantial likelihood" is involved here but the likelihood has been made considerably more "substantial" by the enacted legislation. Anyway, it's to be a de novo consideration, and no judge is so brilliant as to be able to even hint, as this one reportedly has, that he's had enough time to conclude that there's not a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. Meanwhile, the only sane, humane, and logical thing for him to do is stop the dehydration and resume the nutrition. Meanwhile, from another angle, the Schiavo appeal to the 11th Cir. from the state court's denial of an injuction is pending, and was supplementally briefed yesterday. So maybe what we want will come from them while the dist. ct. judge fiddles.
I would support that, but I agree that it won't come to pass.
I'm ticked at my wife for supporting the Deathocrats. I'm going on a hunger strike.
The dehydration worries me quite a bit. That is extreme cruelty. I cannot believe we are even dispassionately discussing such a thing. And, now, with the judge delaying the decision, it shows how little realization he has that a life hangs in the balance.
I am praying, along with ohioWfan and others, that God can provide her with heavenly living waters to saturate her body and bring her through this latest callous crisis. What do you think makes her so strong?
How is a man to be believed, who does not have the HONOR to divorce his wife when he has broken the marriage vows. Yet this is the type of person given credibility by the judiciary.
PS. To be sure, I would support that with supercat's caveats included.
I said the pending appeal to the 11th Cir. is from the state ct's denial. It's, of course, from the prior fed. dist. ct's denial.
If Terri's judicially murdered without the Congressionally mandated Federal appeal process ever having a chance to occur, count on a result for the DemonRats in 2006 like what happened to them in Florida in 2000 after Reno and her thugs kidnapped Elian Gonzales.
That is how I see it as well. Everett Rice could be involved with it, as may be a number of people involved with this hospice (and for all we know, Jim King). This is a nest that needs to be cleaned out, and perhaps this judge now stalling for time needs a little disinfectant himself.
[Christians were totally non-violent and died happily as martyrs rather than resist. ]
You sure they were happy about it?
[Let's get back to discussing Terri Schiavo.]
We ARE talking about Terri AND the rule of law AND the "laws" of human nature. People are angry and they lash out. If this place gives them the opportunity to do that, surely that's better than them acting on impulse in the street. "Demanding" that people here get out of "your" country comes to mind of a good example of lashing out at something you didn't like. We know that you know it's not your decision. But you put it out there...you had your say as others are having theirs.
Are we watching Terri die happily as a martyr? God, I hope not. I hope we all "fight" it as hard as we can. From a legal stand point, you my disagree. I know I don't like that it came to this, but I think it had to. This issue is getting bigger than all of us...
That's where this legal argument simply falls apart. I've always hated this religious liberty argument in this case. It's weak.
I don't like them using that argument either... it surprised me like "that's all they've got?"
I just had an odd vision. I vaguely recall having had this vision before, but not making any sense of it at the time. A bus full of people gets in an accident, and all are magically found to have very recently signed DNR's and organ-donation forms. As it happens, the "accident" was no accident, but rather a staged event to supply organs for transplantation.
Probably doesn't mean anything beyond the obvious, but I thought I'd share it nonetheless.
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