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Posted on 02/28/2005 7:08:08 AM PST by floriduh voter
Bump for reminder--
"On the Record"
Tonight at 10 p.m. ET
Keeping Hope Alive — Mary and Bob Schindler, parents of severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo (search), talk about their struggle to save their daughter’s life.
Prayers continue throughout the day everyday.
Thank you for your continuing prayers on Terri's behalf.
Thank you Halls. It was really a surpise for us to get a call from Children's services!!! We are trusting Jesus to bring us through this and that He will do a work in our daughter's heart and life. We adopted our daughter at age 5 years.She was drug addicted at birth.It isn't easy for seniors to raise young grandchildren though.
Here is what I found regarding the 1999 Florida Legislative Session in regards to the provision entitled END-OF-LIFE CARE — CS/CS/SB 2228 (Klein), HB 2131 (Argenziano and including George Felos):
Authorizes emergency medical technicians, paramedics, and personnel of hospital emergency services, long-term care facilities, assisted-living facilities, home health agencies, hospices, and adult family-care homes to withhold or withdraw cardiopulmonary resuscitation, pursuant to an order not to resuscitate. Makes changes in Chapter 732 relating to the Anatomical Gift Act, allowing health care surrogates with a written declaration to be involved in organ donation. The bill also proposes major revisions to Chapter 765, the Life-Prolonging Procedures Act. CS/CS/SB 2228 and CS/HB 2131 are now nearly identical and are expected to reach the floor in both the House and Senate prior to the end of the session. Both bills now contain provisions that before proceeding in accordance with a principal's living will, it must be determined that: 1) the principal does not have a reasonable probability of recovering capacity so that the right can be exercised directly by the principal; 2) the principal has a terminal condition; 3) has an end-stage condition; 4) or is in a persistent vegetative state. These same triggers are in place for the procedure to follow in the absence of a living will. In the case of a proxy making a health care decision, withdrawal or withholding of life-prolonging procedures must either be supported by a written declaration, or if there is no written declaration, the patient must be terminally ill, have an end-stage condition or be in a persistent vegetative state, and the proxy decision must be supported by clear and convincing evidence that the decision would have been one the patient would have chosen had the patient been competent. This legislation provides a new section on persistent vegetative state, allowing a judicially appointed guardian representing a patient's best interests to withhold or withdraw life-prolonging procedures if the guardian and the person's attending physician (in consultation with the facility's medical ethics committee) conclude that the condition is permanent, and there is no reasonable medical hope of recovery. The House version contains the additional protection that both the attending physician and the guardian conclude that the withholding or withdrawal of treatment would be in the best interests of the patient. The Senate companion legislation is expected to conform to this provision. The Conference has withdrawn opposition to this bill, but has not gone on record in support. CS/CS/SB 2228 is in Senate Rules. CS/HB 2131 is on the House Calendar. (M)
Terri Schiavo's Parents: Starvation Ruling Based on Faulty Assumptions
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 3, 2005
Clearwater, FL (LifeNews.com) -- On Wednesday, Terri Schiavo's parents filed a motion seeking to overturn the 2000 ruling allowing Terri's estranged husband Michael to starve her to death. They have been fighting the ruling ever since and now say that the judge should have taken more stock in a conversation Terri had about a woman in a similar condition.
Bob and Mary Schindler say their daughter engaged in a conversation before her 1990 collapse about Karen Ann Quinlan, a woman who previously drew the nation's attention to the issue of euthanasia.
Quinlan's parents waged a battle to remove her from life support in 1976 after an overdose. They won a court order to remove her from a respirator, but she did not die until 1985.
Circuit Court Judge George Greer based his starvation ruling on testimony from Michael that Terri allegedly had a conversation with him in which she expressed her desire to be removed from artificial life support if she were ever incapacitated.
However, Diane Meyer, a friend of Terri's, previously told the court Schiavo was upset that Quinlan's parents chose to end the life of their daughter.
Meyer said she joked to Terri in the summer of 1982 after seeing a movie about Quinlan's story on television. Meyer told the court the joke was in bad taste and it upset Terri.
Meyer said Schiavo told her "she did not approve of what happened. What the parents are doing" to Quinlan, transcripts state.
"Where there is life, there is hope," Terri told her friend.
In his 2000 ruling, Judge Greer said he thought Meyer's testimony was not credible because she described the conversation in the present tense and his says it raised questions about when the conversation occurred.
"The court is mystified as to how these present tense verbs would have been used some six years after the death of Karen Ann Quinlin [sic]," he wrote.
David Gibbs, the lead attorney for the Schindlers, asked Greer Wednesday to hold a new trial on the matter and to void his 2000 ruling. Gibbs said Judge Greer discounted the testimony because he wrongly believed Quinlan died in 1982.
"Critical evidence was discounted by the court," Gibbs told the Springfield Times newspaper. "If this was a death penalty case, we would have a new sentencing and we would get a new trial. We believe this is huge."
George Felos, the euthanasia advocate who is Michael's lead attorney, dismissed the request. He told the Times it was insignificant and not worthy of revisiting.
Though Terri is not on artificial life support and has always been able to breathe on her own. Michael insists that he be able to disconnect a feeding tube that provides her with food and water.
Judge Greer has scheduled a date of March 18 for Michael to begin the week-long starvation process.
That's awesome!
Thanks for the ping.
WOW!!!!!!!!!!
Judge Greer was working for Michael in 2000 and please post that article here. I will probably crash before I get anything else done. Thanks, FV
Loud and clear!
I had no idea they were that bad! Could you sit-in on the grass? Or would you be arrested for trespassing? Do you have to march in the street?
Error Misled Judge, Schiavo Parents Say
By DAVID SOMMER dsommer@tampatrib.com
Published: Mar 3, 2005
CLEARWATER - A mistake about a famous precedent to the Terri Schiavo case may have caused the trial judge to wrongly conclude Schiavo would not want to be kept alive with the help of a feeding tube, her parents contend.
Judge George Greer's ruling in February 2000 discounted the testimony of a key witness for parents Bob and Mary Schindler based on the mistaken assumption that Karen Ann Quinlan died in the mid-1970s after a celebrated New Jersey court case resulted in her removal from life support.
Quinlan went on to live nine years without life support, a fact that went unmentioned when a former close friend of Terri Schiavo testified in 2000 that Schiavo expressed disapproval of the Quinlan family decision to remove the woman from life support, Schindler attorney David Gibbs said Wednesday.
The witness said the exchange took place in 1982 when Schiavo was 18 or 19. Greer later concluded it took place six years earlier.
``We believe the clear and convincing evidence no longer exists that Terri would have wanted to die,'' Gibbs said.
Greer has ordered that Schiavo's feeding tube be removed March 18. She is expected to die a week to 10 days after nutrition and hydration are halted.
``Obviously, time is ticking,'' Gibbs said of the urgency of the motion he filed Wednesday asking Greer to overturn the verdict he reached after a nonjury trial in January 2000.
In a ruling issued the following month, Greer questioned the credibility of witness Diane Christine Meyer.
Greer concluded that Meyer was mistaken about the date of her discussion with Schiavo and speculated that it occurred when the two were children, not young adults.
The judge went on to conclude that testimony from husband Michael Schiavo and his relatives showed Terri Schiavo made comments as an adult indicating she would not want to be kept alive by artificial means with no hope of improvement.
Terri Schiavo has been in what her husband's doctors testified is a persistent vegetative state since suffering heart failure in 1990 at age 26.
Bob and Mary Schindler contend their daughter reacts to them and could improve with therapy.
Michael Schiavo has been fighting the Schindlers for almost seven years for court permission to remove his wife's life-sustaining feeding tube.
``This motion is worse than frivolous and an abuse of the legal system,'' Schiavo attorney George Felos said Wednesday.
Greer discounted Meyer's testimony for a number of reasons, including her admission that she blamed Michael Schiavo for breaking up her close friendship with Terri Schiavo, Felos said.
The issue of Meyer's credibility should have been raised years ago when the Schindlers first appealed Greer's ruling, Felos said. He disputed Gibbs' assertion that the Schindler legal team only recently realized Quinlan did not die until 1985.
In his 2000 judgment, Greer wrote that the conversation Meyer testified to probably took place in the mid-1970s when she and Terri Schiavo were children because Meyer recounted the conversation as occurring in the present tense.
``The court is mystified as to how these present tense verbs would have been used some six years after the death of Karen Ann Quinlan,'' the judge wrote.
Also Wednesday, Greer heard arguments from an attorney representing The Tampa Tribune and WFLA, Channel 8, in favor of opening court documents that could show why the state Department of Children & Families is now investigating accusations that Terri Schiavo has been or is being abused.
Similar allegations have been made repeatedly during the past five years, yet the state agency only now has chosen to get involved after Gov. Jeb Bush said he would do anything within the law to help keep Terri Schiavo alive, attorney Gregg Thomas said.
DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi, appearing before the Tiger Bay Club in St. Petersburg, said ``no'' when asked whether her agency is being used by the governor.
``The allegation was screened and is from a substantive, credible source with firsthand knowledge of possible abuse,'' Hadi said.
Greer said he will rule today on the request to open up the DCF documents to public inspection.
Reporter Steven Isbitts contributed to this report.
Here's the link to that article, FV.
Error Misled Judge, Schiavo Parents Say
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGB7ZGRGU5E.html
LOL!!!! We would have to be sitting here all day, doing nothing but hitting the thread title to reach those numbers, and maybe not even then.
Well, good old Judge Greer is manipulating testimony so he can discount it. I wonder how many other procedure errors there are?
Terri ping to 1152! If anyone would like to be added to or removed from my Terri ping list, please let me know by FReepmail!
Terri ping to 1200! If anyone would like to be added to or removed from my Terri ping list, please let me know by FReepmail!
Procedural errors? Zillions! TMTC (too many to count!)
You know what I'd like is Terri's thread getting some respect as a prayer thread.
Meaning that someone would ask the Admin. Mods to delete the negative euthenasia style posts......after all this time and suffering we have all felt it would be a blessing not to have to have the ignorant rants.
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