(snip)
"After Greer swore to follow the law during his second judicial term, he began challenging hallowed judicial canons with impunity. Greer had to have help on challenging these canons, and Second District Court of Appeal Chief Judge Chris W. Altenbernd, a Muscatine, Iowa native who moved to Florida after Harvard Law School, (and who was appointed to the court by former Governor Bob Martinez twelve years ago) ratified Greer’s misdeeds.
During the trial of the Schiavo matter, the factual issue of whether Terri Schiavo would want to live if suffering serious medical setbacks arose. Because Michael Schiavo and his Hemlock Society lawyer George Felos had no written evidence of her signing a living will, before her mysterious 1990 injuries, Michael belatedly presented uncorroborated (and likely perjured) testimony that Terri would not want to keep living, which is contradicted by her strong reaction as recently as this last Friday when told by attorney Barbara Weller that her feeding tube would be removed.
During the trial of the Schiavo matter, the factual issue of whether Terri Schiavo would want to live if suffering serious medical setbacks arose. Because Michael Schiavo and his Hemlock Society lawyer George Felos had no written evidence of her signing a living will, before her mysterious 1990 injuries, Michael belatedly presented uncorroborated (and likely perjured) testimony that Terri would not want to keep living, which is contradicted by her strong reaction as recently as this last Friday when told by attorney Barbara Weller that her feeding tube would be removed.
Under the circumstances of the trial testimony, Greer knew that a guardian ad litem (court appointed representative of a young or incompetent party) should be appointed to represent Terri’s interests, because her husband had a self-serving and conflicting interest in killing her, due to his receipt of her personal injury awards, and his convenience in not having to care for her.
Instead of appointing a guardian ad litem to represent Terri’s interests before the Court, Greer contended that he could evaluate her interest properly. By doing so, Greer violated both Canon 5(E)1 and 2 of the Florida Judicial Canons, which prevent a judge from serving as a guardian except for a member of the judge’s family, and Florida statute 744.309(b), which states the Canon in a statute enacted by the Florida legislature.
Of course, Greer could not have gotten away with such a clear violation of judicial integrity, of Chief Judge Altenbernd of the Second District Court of Appeal had not ratified his action in a 2001 decision issued from that court’s Lakeland, FL. Courthouse (see Empire Journal website listing of relevant case pleadings, (www.theempirejournal.com).
During the summer of 2003, former Pinellas County Sheriff and now District 54 Florida State Representative Everett Rice, a longtime political crony of Greer’s, told Terri Schiavo’s lawyer at the time, Patricia Anderson, that Greer had discussed the Schiavo case with Rice, at a baseball game the night before. Anderson reported this clear violation of judicial ethics to the relevant judicial authorities, and sought Greer’s dismissal from the case (for the fourth time), but Judge Altenbernd blandly dismissed Anderson’s most legitimate complaint, and allowed Greer to continue the Schiavo’s case’s terrifying Dance of Death (Empire Journal, 3/18/05 website)."
=======================================================
I URGE YOU ALL TO READ THE REST OF IT AT THE LINK ABOVE - IT'S DATED MARCH 25, 2005
What? No Ping? LOL
The whole thing is on this thread....
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1371099/posts
By ALAN FREEMAN
Friday, April 1, 2005 Updated at 12:54 AM EST
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Pinellas Park, Fla. — The divisive political debate and venomous family battle that characterized Terri Schiavo's final weeks of life showed no signs of dissipating, even with the death of the severely brain-damaged woman in a hospice here yesterday.
Within hours of the passing of the 41-year-old woman, 15 years after she suffered a debilitating heart attack and 13 days after a court had ordered the removal of the feeding tube that kept her alive, right-to-life supporters, including religious and political leaders, were denouncing the death as ungodly and even an act of murder.
The Vatican denounced Ms. Schiavo's "arbitrarily hastened" end as a violation of Christian principles. One leading cardinal even described her passing as a "death sentence executed through a cruel method."
In Washington, U.S. President George W. Bush continued to see the case as a question of morality.
Last month, he signed emergency legislation that attempted, but failed, to force the courts to reinsert the woman's feeding tube.
"The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak," he said. "In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favour of life."
But George Felos, the lawyer representing Ms. Schiavo's husband, Michael, who wanted the feeding tube removed, insisted that the death was clearly the decision of Ms. Schiavo.
"She expressed her wish and she has a right to have those wishes carried out," Mr. Felos told a news conference.
Although Ms. Schiavo had no living will, the courts accepted Mr. Schiavo's contention that his wife had repeatedly said she would not want to be kept alive artificially in case of serious illness.
Ms. Schiavo suffered cardiac arrest in 1990 as a result of a potassium deficiency, possibly linked to an eating disorder. She then fell into what doctors call a persistent vegetative state, although her parents insisted that with patience and advances in medical care, she could have eventually gotten better.
Mr. Felos described how Ms. Schiavo's condition had deteriorated, and how her breathing had become laboured.
When told that the end was near, her husband, who had been living in the hospice for the past two weeks, returned to his wife's room and cradled her as she took her last breath.
But Mr. Schiavo reportedly refused to allow his wife's brother, Bobby Schindler, into the room during those last moments, blaming the rift in the family over Ms. Schiavo's treatment, which began as a dispute over use of the proceeds of a medical malpractice lawsuit in 1993.
Although members of the Schindler family did not single out Mr. Schiavo for blame, Rev. Frank Pavone, a Roman Catholic priest who ministered to the Schindlers and visited Ms. Schiavo shortly before she died, called it more than a sad death. "This is a killing," he said.
Father Pavone said that Mr. Schiavo had banned family members from being in the hospice room as Ms. Schiavo died. "So his heartless cruelty continues until this very last moment," Father Pavone said.
Mr. Felos disputed that account. He said that Ms. Schiavo's brother was asked to leave the room so that hospice staff could examine her. When Mr. Schindler started arguing with a policeman protecting the room, Mr. Schiavo decided to exclude him to avoid a "potentially explosive situation."
"I wished that some healing had occurred, but in this case, it didn't," Mr. Felos said.
Ms. Schiavo's body was taken by police escort to the county medical examiner's office, where there will be an autopsy. She will then be cremated and her remains returned to her native Pennsylvania, to be buried with members of the Schiavo family. Those arrangements were also contested.
Mr. Schiavo plans to have his wife's ashes buried in an undisclosed location near Philadelphia so that her immediate family doesn't turn the burial into a media spectacle, a member of the Schiavo family told The Associated Press yesterday.
Her parents oppose cremation and want her buried in Florida. "If Mike knew they would come in peace, he would have no problem with it," said Scott Schiavo, Michael Schiavo's brother, during an interview.
The anger directed at Michael Schiavo stems in part from the fact that he has lived for close to 10 years with another woman, with whom he has two children, while refusing to divorce Ms. Schiavo or to hand over legal guardianship to her parents.
Although opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority of Americans believe Ms. Schiavo should have been permitted to die and oppose Congress's intervention in the case, Ms. Schiavo's parents got strong political backing from the Christian right, whose support was a deciding factor in Mr. Bush's second-term victory last fall.
The case has also been seen as a warm-up for bitter fights looming over the appointment of new judges, particularly if there are vacancies in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Christian right is eager to make sure that conservatives take the upper hand in any judicial nominations and end the influence of "activist" liberal judges.
Tom DeLay, the Republican Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, placed the blame for Ms. Schiavo's death at the door of the state and federal judges who repeatedly ruled against efforts to keep the feeding tube in place.
"I never thought I'd see the day when a U.S. judge stopped feeding a living American," he said.
James Dobson, an influential leader of the Christian right through his Focus on the Family group, said that the judges who allowed the feeding tube to be removed were guilty of "the cold-blooded, cold-hearted extermination of an innocent human life."
The crowd of supporters, most of them devout Christians, who have been protesting outside the hospice for weeks, were in no mood for reconciliation yesterday.
"Michael is a cold-blooded Nazi murderer. He will pay. Whoever thinks different is a fool," said one handwritten poster. Another placard had a warning to George Greer, the Florida judge who presided over the original case: "Greer: You will be judged by the courts of heaven."
Demonstrator Nancy Kramer blamed everyone from Michael Schiavo and Judge Greer to Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his brother, the President.
Standing on the road outside the hospice holding a dead rose and a defaced photo of Jeb Bush, the 50-year-old Florida woman explained why she held him responsible for Ms. Schiavo's death.
"This happened on his watch, and the murder of an innocent woman will be part of his legacy in the history books," she said, adding that she has been organizing a boycott of Pinellas County for its role in Ms. Schiavo's death. "The state of Florida needs to be punished."
"I blame Michael and the malfunctioning judicial system," said Frank D'Angelo, a Toronto man who spent the past week outside the hospice, armed with a Canadian flag.
Mr. D'Angelo, 49, who said he is religious but does not regularly attend church, is worried that society may be embarking on a slippery slope in its treatment of the handicapped.
"Seventy years ago, the Nazis started killing the disabled and called them useless eaters and then it got much worse," he said.
Like most of the other protesters, he was planning to attend a memorial service yesterday evening before flying back home to Toronto over the weekend.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/