Posted on 03/18/2005 10:41:59 AM PST by My Favorite Headache
Apparent to whom?
Anyone with at least three functional brain cells?
No reasonable person can believe that married man who has openly started a family with another woman and pledged to marry her considers himself bound by oath to his first wife. At least not unless his marriage vows were extremely unusual and unorthodox.
If Terri had an honest guardian, such a person would file for divorce on her behalf (Florida law allows for that); under the circumstances, a divorce-court judge would almost certainly rule that the marriage was irreparably damaged by Michael's actions. Such a divorce would eliminate any claims Michael may have to book deals, any remaining trust fund moneys, insurance policies, etc.
That Michael refuses a divorce which an honest guardian would seek implies that he has a manifest conflict of interest. At absolute minimum, the conflict of interest rises to the level where a guardian ad litem should supervise Michael's actions. Unfortunately, when Richard Pearse was Terri's guardian ad litem (briefly), he objected to what Michael was doing and so Michael asked Greer to fire him (which Greer did).
Doesn't something seem a bit non-Kosher?
Then why did he testify in court that he'd need money for years and years of therapy?
Michael could have walked into a divorce court any time he wanted, starting in 1994, and walked out a few hours later free to ignore his former wife forevermore.
He has refused to do that. If Terri's condition is as bad as Michael has claimed, his life would have been much easier had he done that, and he could have married Jodi long ago. Michael doesn't just want to be free of Terri. HE WANTS HER DEAD. And I'm nowhere near naïve enough to believe that a man who's pledged to marry another woman retains fealty to his wife. Michael has shown himself to be openly hateful toward Terri's loved ones, in a manner that is almost certainly contrary to Terri's wishes. There are no plausible legitimate motives for his desire to kill Terri, but there are plenty of illegimate ones that make a great deal of sense.
Why, if her wish was to be killed rather than receive it?
Ir's obvious that he wants to move on. That's why the legislature specifically allowed for someone to divorce a spouse that's been incapacitated three or more years. But you seem to think that Michael is loyal to his wife despite his open renunciation of her oaths to her. I see no basis whatsoever for such a presumption.
A pledge to marry someone is a promise of loyalty to that person above all others. Although the promise isn't made permanent until the wedding, the promise is made at engagement. Either Michael is no longer primarily to his legal wife, or he made a false promise to his second wife. In neither case, can he be deemed trustworthy with regard to the first.
If a trial court judge declares the sky is green, an appeals court can't challenge unless he was asked to look out the window and refused. If the trial court judge looks out the window and still declares the sky is green, an appeals court judge can't argue otherwise.
Judge Greer has declared that a man who is openly living with another woman, fathered two children by her, and pledged to marry her, is nonetheless somehow primarily faithful to his first wife. An appeals court may not be allowed to question his judgement on that, but anyone with 3 or more functioning brain cells should recognize that such a proposition is fundamentally absurd.
I'm really sorry I don't have an organized collection of bookmarks. Perhaps someone else with a better selection will chime in. But in a malpractice trial, Michael testified that he intended to care for his wife as long as he lived, and a jury subsequently awarded him $300,000 for loss of consortium and awarded Terri $750,000 for therapy and related expenses. Even though I don't have a quote of his testimony handy, the money was awarded for the purpose of providing many years of rehabilitation; I think it is pretty safe to say that if the jury knew Michael planned to discontinue therapy within months of receiving his award judgement, they would not have awarded so much.
I don't have a copy handy, but my wedding oath was something to the effect of "Do you, ___ solemnly swear to love, honor, and cherish ___, for richer or for pooer, in sickness and in heath, forsaking all others, until death do you part"?
Perhaps Terri had some new-agey wedding vows that left out the "forsaking all others" bit, but it's so universally standard I'd think it very strange if she did.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.