ALMOST lost in the emotion of the Florida case involving a brain-damaged woman is the consistent position of the courts to preserve and protect the constitutional integrity of our government. The U.S. Supreme court was the most recent panel to weigh in on the sad saga of Terri Schiavo. It refused to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that got it right by declaring unconstitutional Florida's legislative gymnastics to personally affect one life and death.
In other words, the democratic system with three independent and co-equal branches of government worked the way it's supposed to and not how Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and allies hoped it would to their political advantage. Mrs. Schiavo's plight-the woman has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years - is a private family affair that has been shamelessly exploited in the public arena.
But fortunately, when both the legislative and executive branch of Florida conspired to legally wrest power from Mrs. Schiavo's husband and guardian acting on her behalf, the judicial branch properly balked at the blatant abuse of authority. When the Florida Legislature rushed legislation through that empowered the governor to intervene directly in the ongoing medical treatment of Mrs. Schiavo, constitutional experts protested the action as illegal and politically motivated.
The tailor-made "Terri's Law" allowed Governor Bush to countermand a court decision that ordered a feeding tube removed from the patient at the request of her husband. Days later the governor had it re-inserted. The Florida Supreme Court said the law that allowed him to intervene was unconstitutional. With his conservative base in mind, Mr. Bush appealed unsuccessfully to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Yet nature is still blunted from taking its course with the now 41-year-old woman, afflicted with massive atrophy of the brain, who lives in a Florida nursing home. Legal challenges in two Florida courts could mean that despite the high court's action the feeding tube keeping Mrs. Schiavo's body alive will not be removed soon.
The unfortunate fact is the Schiavo case has become the centerpiece in a raging debate between right-to-die and right-to-life combatants who have taken the last shred of dignity from a wife and daughter reduced to dying by degree.
The world should never have been privy to the wrenching disagreement between Michael Schiavo and his in-laws over when and how to handle his wife's end-of-life needs.
But the tragedy has been blown into an international cause clbre with legal impediments that prevent the poor woman from resting in peace.
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050203/OPINION02/502030370
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Gov. Minner signs prison term bill
Legislation called unconstitutional
By ESTEBAN PARRA and PATRICK JACKSON / The News Journal
02/03/2005Gov. Ruth Ann Minner has signed into law a controversial bill that legal experts say unconstitutionally overrides a state Supreme Court decision and leaves the state vulnerable to lawsuits from prisoners illegally denied release even though their prison terms have ended.
Afterward, Minner wrote a letter to the Delaware Supreme Court asking the five justices for an advisory opinion on the law's constitutionality. Neither the Supreme Court nor Minner would comment Wednesday.
A Minner spokeswoman said the governor would not "speculate on a ruling that has not come down yet."
The new law sets aside a state Supreme Court ruling that required the prison system to release inmates who have served the terms required under the laws in effect when they were sentenced.
More than 200 inmates, including murderers, would be eligible for release, state officials said, although they continue to decline to release their names. The law also greatly restricts the courts' ability to pass judgment on future legislation, a consequence that lawyers said could tarnish the Supreme Court's national reputation.
The House of Representatives unanimously approved the bill last week. A day later, the Senate approved it unanimously after about 30 minutes of discussion. Many observers have said the speed at which this bill became law indicates a knee-jerk reaction by politicians trying to be tough on crime but not thinking of possible consequences.
Two hundred years of constitutional law can not be studied in a matter of days, said Chuck Lewis, founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington D.C.-based watchdog group. "Anyone who flies at that speed is flying blind.
"Everyone wants to be the toughest they can be on crime, almost at an adolescent level," he said. "I always have a problem with people playing politics with life-and-death matters, not to mention constitutional matters."
But the bill's prime sponsor, House Majority Leader Wayne A. Smith, R-Clair Manor, said he was pleased that Minner signed the bill into law. Smith, who was less concerned with the new laws consequences, called the law groundbreaking.
"There are people who are trying to call this a constitutional crisis, but it isn't that as much as it's a constitutional conflict," he said. "In our system of checks and balances, this is a case where the Legislature is trying to see how much of a check it has on the courts when they issue rulings that are in conflict with clear legislative intent."
Constitutional flaws
Legal experts, however, said the bill appeared to have several constitutional flaws, including violating separation of powers, a governmental doctrine employed in the U.S. Constitution to prevent any one branch of government - the Legislature, the judiciary or the executive - from gaining too much power.
Similar cases wind up in courts for years. In Florida for example, that state's Supreme Court unanimously said Gov. Jeb Bush and lawmakers improperly tried to pull an end run around the court system in the case of Terri Schiavo, who had been at the center of a long and bitter right-to-die dispute between her husband and parents.
As early as 2000, lower courts had ruled that Michael Schiavo could have his wife's feeding tube removed. But in October 2003, Florida's Legislature passed "Terri's Law" to override the courts, and Bush quickly invoked it to order the tube reinserted, six days after it had been withdrawn. Last month, the Supreme Court refused to step in and keep Schiavo hooked to a feeding tube. Her husband's attorney said the feeding tube will be removed as soon as pending appeals are over and a stay is lifted.
May violate civil rights
Delaware lawyers also have said the new law could violate such civil rights as due process, meaning laws must be applied according to established rules and principles, and protection against ex post facto laws - those which impose penalties on actions committed before the laws were passed.
Several Delaware attorneys, including the Delaware State Bar Association, have written letters to Minner citing concerns with the law. "Although the intent of the General Assembly - to protect the citizens of our state from the release of criminals who committed vicious crimes - is an important one, we fear the General Assembly had not been advised of certain consequences of H.B. 31 when it passed that bill," the state bar's executive committee wrote in its nine-page letter. The consequences go beyond the state, according to Helen L. Winslow, the state bar association's president-elect.
"One of the concerns is that the Delaware judiciary is so highly regarded nationally that anything that undercuts their authority is hurtful for Delaware," she said. "By the Legislature limiting the Supreme Court's ability to interpret law, that undercuts the courts and undercuts one of the reasons why Delaware is so desirable to incorporate in."
Delaware courts have been ranked No. 1 for three consecutive years by a United States Chamber of Commerce survey of the most business-friendly courts. The ranking is based on lawyers' opinions on the courts' fairness, as well as predictability in determining a variety of legal cases.
Many companies have cited this friendly business environment as a reason for incorporating in Delaware. There are more than 550,000 corporations, limited-liability companies and limited partnerships in Delaware. Taxes and fees charged to them generated $618 million - 22 percent of the state's total revenue - during the last fiscal year.
Contradicts state code
The new law also goes against at least 60 statutes in the Delaware Code in which the Legislature has instructed courts to liberally interpret the law. This can be found in sections including agriculture, labor and crimes and criminal procedures. The new law contradicts these statutes.
"So what's the court supposed to do?" Winslow asked.
Contact Esteban Parra at 324-2299 or eparra@delawareonline.com. Contact Patrick Jackson at 678-4274 or pjackson@delawareonline.com.
Oh, brother! They want the "poor woman" to be starved to death and they call that resting in peace. Sheeeeesh.
consistent position of the courts
I think this consistency in the FL courts is because the higher courts cannot legally or will not politically review the actual "evidence" by which popular George W. Greer decided first in 2001 that Terri must die.