| I'm going to start from square one.
Under that provision, the DCF could have seized Terri and gotten her into a hospital. Having done that, they would have 24 hours to notify a court of what they had done, and to petition for continued custody of Terri. Weekends and holidays do not count toward the 24 hours. So had they seized her any time after midnight Friday, they would not have to notify a court until Monday. Once the court is notified, it must schedule a hearing. Parties wishing to appear at the hearing must be given 24 hours notice. So the hearing can't happen before Tuesday. They would have had almost four days to bring Terri back to whatever state they could, and get a PET scan (which is not an MRI scan, for all you magnetism fans) in an effort to prove that she has higher-brain activity. Had a PET scan shown activity in the cerebral cortex, all the doctors would have stepped back from the "vegetative state" diagnosis, and the talking heads on TV would have been going, "Whoa!" As to the facts: the DCF did not petition Greer for permission to enter the facility to take Terry. They petitioned for legal custody, a subtly different thing under a different law. The order that Greer issued forbidding the DCF to act under the "imminent harm" law was issued in response to a filing by Felos, who heard Jeb on the TV saying he was going to send in the DCF under the "emergency" provisions. Felos rushed to court and got an order forbidding that... an order that is likely to be found highly illegal if ever reviewed. |
Then start with the law, and the facts. There is an "emergency" provision in the law that allows the DCF to act without a court order if it believes that a disabled person is in imminent danger of harm. This was the provision that the DCF intended to act under.