Posted on 06/15/2005 12:27:19 PM PDT by veronica
An essay entitled, "Why the Law Worked in the Terri Schiavo Case", by Robert Tracinsky (incidentally, registered under that name on FR), website http://www.tiadaily.com
The article isn't currently available at the link, but I found it doing a google search.
I'm sorry you've not known loving men who would fulfil wishes of their spouses.
</sarc>
I'm going to start selling Nobel prize nominations. Like my slogan? "Just as valid as Hammesfahr's!"
Want one?
..... paging Dr. Jordan Cavenaugh....
You keep assuming she had this wish to die. Not only is it based on (English) hearsay, it is claimed way after the fact and even if she stated such a thing off the cuff, it is not in truth a bound, sealed statement of belief. As if she was in deep thought about it. People state such things glibly all the time - then when it comes down to it, "change their minds" (as if they really thought about it at all). Or they change their minds through their lives, anyway.
1 glib off-the-cuff statement does not constitute a viable intention to me. Never mind the questionable existence of it.
The court ruled this to be the case, and was upheld at every level of the state and federal judiciary.
Not only is it based on (English) hearsay
No, it was based on testimony.
Hearsay is hearsay, in real life, no matter what FL rules are. It's a "he said & he said" situation. The victim here was not asked for her testimony - which would have been truly direct, not any1 else's.
As for the "upheld" smoke&mirrors - the procedures of the lower court were upheld, not necessarily the lower-court opinion that Terri truly wanted to die.
BTW: And OJ is innocent!
No, I don't. I'm on record here with doubts about his claims of what she said. (and how all this came down)
My point about the Schindlers remains, as their determination remained, whether she did wish to die, or did not.
They actually petitioned the court not to *allow her* to "put her immortal soul in danger" by making the choice. Many freepers have taken that position, too. That's what I despise.
But then, as another poster indicated, it is not "her" right to force her family to go along w/her wishes when it is against their beliefs and feelings. (Esp. since we have absolutely no proof it WAS her wish!)
You apparently do not understand the legal distinction between 'hearsay' and 'testimony'. 'Hearsay' is, "John told me that Jim said X". 'Testimony' is, "I personally heard Jim say X". What MS and the corroborating witnesses told the court was not hearsay.
the procedures of the lower court were upheld, not necessarily the lower-court opinion that Terri truly wanted to die.
Of course, that's what appeals courts do. It was ruled on appeal that Greer did not abuse his discretion.
What a ridiculous argument. An adult does not need permission from his family to exercise his legal rights.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-C. S. Lewis
I don't see the difference. Can you explain?
If someone is shot and is in the hospital for six months, finally dying of an infection, then the manner of death would be homicide and the cause of death would be the infection.
That is an appalling statement! Is this what you truly believe? The individual's rights must give way to others' beliefs? So then her family has the right to force their beliefs on her? Perhaps this is at the heart of all this disagreement. It is a very revealing statement.
Oh you all give me a break!
You all didn't get so up in arms about the man earlier posting that he told his MIL he wouldn't have anything to do w/carrying out her "wishes" to die if you put out a written document, e.g., DNR. It's her right to die, but not her right to expect him to sign up to it and "enforce" it.
That is the exact point I was reiterating! Maybe I'm not great at writing, but that's all it was about.
I have said a million times that hearsay is an English word that means anything coming from the mouths of any1 BUT the 1st party. I've also shown I KNOW about the (silly) legal definition which extends it to 2nd parties. Hence my ref's to "English" and here, "real life".
Just cuz I tell you my cube-mate told me he got a bonus at work, doesn't make it so that he actually said this. My "testimony" in court is hearsay in real life.
I don't mean to single you out, Oilreb. If I'd read that in isolation, it wouldn't bother me so much.
I understand if *you* didn't mean it the way it came out, but that kind of thinking is far too common, and was what I was condemning her parents for.
WRT the earlier poster, there's a big difference between asking someone to carry out your wishes, and asking them not to fight your wishes.
That is hardly the same thing as sign up to it and "enforce"it. That is saying it was okay for them to interfere with her wishes. I have no problem if some one douesn't want to honor another's final wishes. But, as long as the wishes are legal, they have no right to interfere or stop them from being carried out.
And I would have responded to the other poster you referred to, if I knew who they were.
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