The Terri Schiavo case painfully illustrates the fact that the ‘rule of law’ in our republic has found itself surreptitiously transformed into a spiderweb of irrational ‘legalities’ that no longer have any foundation in ‘justice’.
Our modern legal/judicial system is now based on decades of irrational precedents, set by (1) juries who were incapable of critical thought and who allowed themselves to be thought-programmed by glib attorneys, and (2) judges whose agenda is focused on self-enrichment and socialist societal engineering rather than truth and fairness.
Often, when an issue becomes clouded by a maze of man-made, agenda-driven ‘technicalities’, the simplest analysis can help to clear away the smoke. The following facts are pretty much accepted by most observers of this case:
(1) Terri’s physical and mental states are the result of circumstances that place her husband in a less than favorable light
(2) that same husband has denied her even minimal physical therapy, and has instead seen to it that stimuli have been denied her for fifteen years
(3) countless reputable medical specialists familiar with her case have observed that, even after fifteen years, the patient could benefit from, and respond to, appropriate therapy
(4) the patient’s family is willing to assume all financial and physical responsibility for her care from here on in, and
(5) the husband is insisting on cremation of the body, without benefit of further medical examination after death.
Is there anyone out there with half a brain who doesn’t know where the truth lies, and what justice would entail in this case? So what is standing in the way of justice being done here? When did common sense cease to play a role in our legal/judicial system? And when did unaccountable judges, unscrupulous lawyers, and jurors who are incapable of rational analysis of facts, obtain the upper hand over our lives and liberties?
A week ago, when Brian Nichols was captured, after having killed, in plain view of numerous witnesses, four innocent citizens, most of us spent significant time listening to ‘legal experts’ predict his fate. To a person, these ‘legal experts’ agree that his journey through the legal/judicial system will amount to a circus (not unlike that represented by the O.J. Simpson or Scott Peterson trials), after which he will no doubt remain on death row for a decade or two, while the inevitable appeals take their toll in money and manpower. The entire charade will no doubt wind up indirectly costing taxpayers millions, while tying up the courts (city, state, and/or federal) for hundreds of thousands of hours.
The tragedy in all of this – the Schiavo case, the Nichols case, and countless others that occur on a daily basis in every city and town across this country -- is that we accept this perversion of ‘justice’ as an inevitable part of life in America 2005.
We have become like the Pharisees whom Christ consistently sought to redeem in the New Testament. Much of His ministry was spent doing spiritual battle with their ‘legal traditions’. They demanded that He validate and approve what they called the tradition of the elders. In effect, they wanted Him to consider their foolish man-made laws equivalent to the laws of scripture. Christ was vehement that He would not give His blessing to these man- made traditions saying, ‘You lay aside the commandment of God and hold higher the tradition of men.’ The Pharisees’ laws set up a barrier between scriptural law and their nit-picking human edicts. Because they stopped people from learning and embracing the word of God, and forced them to focus on nonsense, Christ admonished them for making laws for the sake of laws. He consistently rebuked them, saying ‘Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.’ (Luke 11:52)
There is no more pointed demonstration of the chasm between ordinary human thinking and the mental processes of the lawyer than in the almost universal reaction of law students when they first encounter The Law. They come to law school a normally intelligent, normally curious, normally receptive group. Day in and day out they are subjected to the legal lingo of judges, textbook writers, professors – those learned in The Law. But for months none of it clicks; there seems to be nothing to take hold of. These students cannot find anywhere in their past knowledge or experience a hook on which to hang all this strange talk of 'mens rea' and 'fee simple' and 'due process' and other unearthly things. Long and involved explanations in lectures and lawbooks only make it all more confusing. The students know that law eventually deals with extremely practical matters like buying land and selling stock and putting thieves in jail. But all that they read and hear seems to stem not only from a foreign language but from a strange and foreign way of thinking.
Eventually their confusion founded though it is in stubborn and healthy skepticism is worn down. Eventually they succumb to the barrage of principles and concepts and all the metaphysical refinements that go with them. And once they have learned to talk the jargon, once they have forgotten their recent insistence on matters-of-factness, once they have begun to glory in their own agility at that mental hocus-pocus that had them befuddled a short while ago, then they have become, in the most important sense, lawyers. Now they, too, have joined the select circle of those who can weave a complicated intellectual riddle out of something so mundane as a strike or an automobile accident. Now it will be hard if not impossible ever to bring them back to that disarmingly direct way of thinking about the problems of people and society which they used to share with the average man before they fell in with the lawyers and swallowed The Law.
… Fred Rodell, Professor of Law, Yale University, 1939
~ joanie
This lays the groundwork for nothing. It is an extraordinary case that sets no precedent.
Joanie, I'll repeat what I've said before- You should be Chief Justice or Attorney General. And I'm serious.
The Rodell quote is amazing, especially since it was written more than 60 years ago.
Check your mail.
Judge Greer is so blind he is not allowed to drive.
A long time ago, the Schindlers, on bad advice from the attorney they had at that time, did not contend the point that Terri was in a Persistive Vegetative State -- this has been a sore point on appeals to higher courts.
These appeals court see that the parents at one time agreed that Terri was in a Persistive Vegetative State, so this point is considered mute by these courts.
But one cannot allow courts to define a permanent medical condition -- medical conditions can change.
A great example is that a young boy from Kansas was told he would never walk again after a serious fire and serious injuries. Not only did he walk, he came really close to the Mythical Four minute mile in the 1930's. He is Glenn Cunningham. Now should not the courts strip him of his records since he was diagnosed he could never walk again.
That is the mentality of those involved in the Terri Schiavo case.
Is there anyone out there with half a brain who doesn’t know where the truth lies, and what justice would entail in this case? So what is standing in the way of justice being done here? When did common sense cease to play a role in our legal/judicial system? And when did unaccountable judges, unscrupulous lawyers, and jurors who are incapable of rational analysis of facts, obtain the upper hand over our lives and liberties?
I think what you're describing started with Eisenhower's appointment of Earl Warren as chief justice. He was governor of California before that, and he was really the first who took to "legislating from the bench." But, whenever it started, it is now out of control and the average American doesn't even realize how much so.