Judge Won't Issue Decision on Schiavo Yet

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.

His hearing is in the nature of a post conviction petition in an analogous criminal setting. The supervening issue is: Is the trial court's judgment adequately supported by the law that was applied in the context of the record facts.

This sounds more like an appeal than a new case. Have you read the pleadings? I was under the impression this was more like a civil rights case which gave the federal court jurisdiction (denial of life, liberty, due process, etc.). What you are saying is that it is a review of a lower court's judgment? How is that different from an appeal? (I'm so confused. :( )

"But to let her lie there and deteriorate futher while he's out have dinner tonight, thinking about things, is just evil. If he decides in two days the case has merit, it won't do any good if Terri is dead."

Thomas Jefferson, wrote in a letter to Monsieur A. Coray, October 31, 1823:

"At the establishment of our constitution,
the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless
and harmless members of the government.
Experience, however, soon showed in what
way they were to become the most dangerous..."

Thank you for your reply. The main thing that gives me hope is that we know of this case at all. Despite my concerns of how we as a society will react to Terri's death (should it come to that, as I fear it will), the fact that we have a tool now to spread info that in years past would have remained secret, gives me hope. You see, good men can do nothing to fight evil when the evil is hidden. You describe a man discussing this issue in 1967, in that year, would you or I even be aware of this? With the media then (and now), I doubt it. For all we know, stuff like this happened then as well, but no one knew.

Well, it really wasn't about this issue but it was how, at the time where the Democrats send us to war and other such things as well as the general battle between good and evil. I don't know if this issue would have been in the forefront in 1967 or not, I would say not because even then, we were not as far down the abyss as we are now although it was getting its start then. I see Mort Sahl's comment as part of the general war of good vs. evil, a sort of like a 1967 version of Sean Hannity's "Deliver Us From Evil" about whati s at stake and who is behind it in a nutshell. Still whether it is an unjust (as Bosnia was) war or a noble but bungled up war (Vietnam), abortion, Terri Schiavo, etc., I think Sahl's statement could apply.

However, my question stands, how will we respond to the murder of an innocent, who was denied due process, should she die at the hands of the state? Time will tell...

I don't know. There is a lot of rage, anger and sadness out there. I don't like inaction. I commend President Bush, Congress, Governor Bush and others but time and Terri is wasting away while another judge sits on his butt. If I was President, I'd be sending in troops like the Israelis did during the raid on Entebbe or the Soviets in "Red Dawn" all over the area where the hospice is.

You know what is amazing? The libs cry for due process if it was a murderer on death row, like that Mumia guy here in Pennsylvania for killing a cop in 1981. Well, I guess I can't argue too much, I mean before execution, it is good to dot all "I's" and cross all "T's" before proceeding but Terri is being denied even that although she should not be killed at all. Or think about this, if Terri was some poor, Colored girl being denied access to her local school in 1955 Mississippi, troops would be rushed in and rightly so. I work developing photos in a drugstore and ran into one of the local bigwigs of the Republican Party here and I told him about me writing my Congress Critters and stating that if this goes on, we as a society are no better than Nazi Germany or Al Qaida and he agreed with me.

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