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Hemlock actively recruited patients and doctors for the case.
In the summer of l994, Hemlock of Florida ran a front-page article in its newsletter recruiting terminally ill patients and cooperative doctors to serve as plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the state's assisted suicide law. (12) The search continued with additional emphasis being placed on the need for a terminally ill patient "who anticipates that he/she will live for 12 months or so." (13)

By the end of l995, Hemlock reported that Attorney Robert Rivas of the American Civil Liberties Union had agreed to work pro bono on the case and that "[a]s soon as we find the right patient, we will be able to go to court." (14) The ACLU would share costs of the case with Hemlock. (15)

Florida Hemlock president Mary Bennett Hudson said lawsuit organizers traveled statewide, interviewing almost 50 patients and more than 12 physicians to find the ideal plaintiffs for the case. According to Hudson, "We knew we needed people who were articulate, who would make good witnesses." (16)

Finally, semi-retired physician Cecil McIver, 74, and Charles Hall, a 35-year-old restaurant manager who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion, became the plaintiffs in the case which has reached the Florida Supreme Court.

Doctor and patient had never met before the case began.
In his opinion, declaring the right for McIver to prescribe lethal medication to Hall, Judge Davis implied a Marcus Welby & patient type of relationship between the two plaintiffs: ":[T]he Court must leave the final determination of when to die to the privacy of the physician patient relationship where it belongs." (17) However, McIver and Hall had never met before the lawsuit. (18)

After meeting, McIver's contact with Hall was limited to a "review of Mr. Hall's medical and hospital records" and to observing Hall "on several occasions." (19)

Come to think of it...I'm becoming more and more convinced Greer is affiliated with Hemlock, et al. His decisions sound much like this:

It was during the Hemlock conference’s first session that Merrill, Raben, and others presented those research findings to conference attendees. The message was simple: People don’t like the word "suicide," and Hemlock had to take on a kinder, gentler image. "People want to talk about this concept as ‘lessening suffering’ rather than ‘assistance in dying,’" Merrill explained.

Even more significant, he said, was that support for Hemlock’s agenda jumped 13 percentage points when the idea of patients’ being in control of their care and pain treatment at the end of life was presented to the focus groups.

A handout distributed to the conference audience spelled out Hemlock’s new direction. Deceptively titled "Empowering People to Preserve the Dignity of Life: A New Roadmap," [hereafter cited as "Roadmap"] the sheet stated that the newly "reshaped and expanded" advocacy program will be carried out, not by Hemlock, but by its political arm, the Patients Rights Organization of the United States of America (PRO-USA). The new program consists of three key components: (1) promotion of a new advance directive, (2) consensus building endorsements of Hemlock’s new "Statement of Principles," and (3) the advancement of state laws to expand patients’ rights.