[the OlLine Rebel]

Who made the decision to die? Terri? There is absolutely nothing but hearsay by a few - all on the *same side* of the fence.

Not only is there nothing but hearsay by a couple people, but it was about 1 verbal statement which hardly had a notary-public seal. A statement off-the-cuff which doesn't reflect any serious thoughts about the issue.

And not only that, but Mr. Michael didn't say anything about this "wish" for years!

All a bit suspect! And hardly "beyond a reasonable doubt"!

[malakhi]

Who made the decision to die? Terri? There is absolutely nothing but hearsay by a few

Judge Greer explicitly concluded that he could not rule on Terri Schiavo's intentions based solely on her husband's testimony. He ruled, instead, that Michael Schiavo's testimony was corroborated by multiple other witnesses whose statements were consistent and reliable. The testimony related to statement made by Terri Schiavo to members of her family after the funeral of her husband's grandmother, who had been kept alive in her final days on artificial life support. According to several people who were present at the conversation, Terri said that she would not want to be kept alive on artificial life support. This evidence has been referred to derisively by conservative commentators as "hearsay," which is meant to make it seem unreliable and insubstantial.

Here a little legal background helps. According to the online legal dictionary at http://dictionary.law.com, "hearsay" is "second-hand evidence in which the witness is not telling what he/she knows personally, but what others have said to him/her." (http://tinyurl.com/6earu) The idea is that you are testifying, not to what you saw, but to what someone else said they saw. Direct testimony would be "I saw Smith shoot Jones"; hearsay testimony would be "I heard Davis say he saw Smith shoot Jones." This is unreliable, since Davis is not testifying directly, so there is no way to judge the credibility of his alleged statement.

But that doesn't quite apply to this case, because the Schiavo relatives who testified about Terri's statements *did* directly observe the facts to which they were testifying: they directly heard Terri state her intentions about what she wanted to happen if she became permanently incapacitated.

MS testified that Terri had expressed a desire not to live in such a condition. His testimony was corroborated by several other witnesses. The Schindlers, on the other hand, testified that they would not agree to follow Terri's wishes even if that was what she wanted.