Posted on 06/22/2005 8:06:02 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
"Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" asked Joseph Welch in his famous confrontation with the pathologically cruel Joe McCarthy. "Have you left no sense of decency?"
More than a half-century later, I would ask the same question of Florida's governor, Jeb Bush.
In an abuse of power that has been widely denounced, and has even appalled many of his own supporters in the Republican Party, Governor Bush has tried to keep the Terri Schiavo circus alive by sending state prosecutors on a witch hunt against her husband, Michael.
The state attorney who has been pushed by the governor into pursuing this case told me yesterday he has seen nothing to indicate that a crime was committed. Nevertheless, the inquiry continues.
Governor Bush asked Bernie McCabe, the state attorney for Pinellas County, to "take a fresh look" at this already exhaustively investigated case to determine, among other things, whether Michael Schiavo had perhaps waited too long to call for help after discovering that his wife had collapsed early one morning 15 years ago.
Mr. McCabe did not seem particularly enthusiastic about his mission. "I wouldn't call it an investigation," he told me in a telephone conversation. The word "investigation," he said, "is a term of art in my business."
He then explained: "When I conduct an investigation, it would mean that I have a criminal predicate. In other words, that I have some indication that a crime has occurred. That's my job...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A dispute over "facts" does not mean anyone at all is telling a lie.
If you didn't learn about how to conduct disputations, it would seems to me you missed a lot of Hebrew School as well. I know a lady who runs a tremendous program for children. Maybe she has room.
Oh, wah. He "lost his wife". Just like the Menendez brothers wanted sympathy for their "orphaned" status.
He's a foul murderer.
Once again, dehydration was NOT an option when Terri was injured. There can be NO WAY to prove that was what her choice would have been.
Question for you, what's the difference between snuffing someone with a pillow and simply dehydrating them?
There's a link here I seem to be missing. Maybe you can illuminate things.
Isn't it ironic that Terri was in a place routinely noted for offering (supposed) comfort measures to the dying?
Schiavo/Felos knew almost all the PR moves.
Hard for even competent lawyers to play against a stacked deck. Why do you excuse murder?
These are not good days.
Not everybody has such a bracelet. For instance, that woman Terri Shiavo, didn't.
If the truth were on your side in this matter, you would not have to exaggerate the Jeb's position to make your point.
Isn't that the truth!
One of our preachers always told the joke that "The Jews are God's chosen people and the Methodists are God's frozen people."
I'm Methodist, of course. hehehe
At central issue here is what she wanted. The preponderance of the evidence suggests she had no wish to be killed. However the courts simply took the word of a husband, and obstinately refused to review any other evidence on the matter.
Again and again, year after year, they reiterated the original finding without any review of its veracity.
At this point it might be a little embarrassing and unsettling for people who advocated her death to still care about the truth. Some might even feel enough secret guilt that claim its a "witch-hunt" -- an absurd exageration worthy of Senator Durbin. That aside, there is good reason to review the case in the light of improving the law regarding such determinations.
Accusing someone of spousal abuse and attempted murder, without a scintilla of evidence, is more than a mere dispute over facts.
I believe you need to study this issue a little more. You act as if this were a new method invented by the courts. You are sorely mistaken.
Do you think he lost her when her brain was injured, or over the years when she got worse for lack of the therapy he forbade, or when he finally had what was left of her destroyed?
In fact, he didn't lose his wife. He kept legal custody of that property until he got permission to have it destroyed. By that time she wasn't really an actual wife, other than in as a legal fiction. The woman he had a family with was his real wife at that point.
Unlike you, I respect the right of individuals to refuse medical treatment. The courts found clear and convincing evidence that Terri's wish was not to live under those circumstances. You consider following her wishes to be "murder". I don't.
The court saw all the evidence; you haven't. The court ruled that there was clear and convincing evidence that Terri did not wish to live under those circumstances. This ruling was upheld at every level of the state and federal judiciary.
I am NOT "mistaken".
They applied a new law allowing dehydration to a woman who could NOT have expressed a wish for it, since it WAS NOT LEGAL
when she "mysteriously collapsed".
"The order stopped the water."
From your reply do you mean to imply that the water was NOT stopped before the order ?
You may have missed that part. As you know it's OK to speculate about the possibility someone commited a crime without knowing specifically that a crime occurred or that the target of the discussion was involved.
Otherwise, no one would ever report a crime or a suspect!
Ergo, such discussions only rarely could be considered libel or slander in the law. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but you'd have a difficult time pursuing a claim (at least in the USA).
In the end we are left with what is, at worst, a dispute over what facts count, and what facts don't count, in a very difficult case extending over nearly 2 decades.
You already know my dispute is with Florida's fascist law that says you can deprive people of water. That's a very dangerous law.
She did not refuse medical treatment.
OK bubba, I'll get you the direct quotes of exactly what the doctor wrote in his report. I just zinged that other guy because he zinged me with his dumb comment about "feeling". You don't have to automatically throw it back at me.
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