Free Republic

More than two years after enraging right-wing groups by ordering Terry Schiavo's feeding tube removed, George Greer still peers over his shoulder nervously at times. In fact, the Florida judge told a rapt audience Friday at the American Bar Association's annual meeting, he even used an alias when he registered at his San Francisco hotel on this trip. Two years ago, he said, someone in the Bay Area threatened to kill him over his decision to end life support for the brain-damaged Schiavo. And even though that person was prosecuted and jailed, Greer said, he's taking no chances. "It is...

JACKSONVILLE · Republican Charlie Crist on Sunday condemned the release to news organizations of confidential court papers showing that he denied being the father of a child born in 1989. "It's sad. The most scurrilous thing I've heard of in Florida politics," Crist said about the documents e-mailed to news organizations Saturday, three days before Tuesday's Republican primary for governor. The campaign acknowledged the documents, including a consent form signed by Crist allowing the baby girl's adoption, appear to be accurate.

A local hospice wants to know who is trying to sell Terri Schiavo's hospital gown on eBay. The eBay listing claims the gown was owned by Schiavo, the Clearwater woman who died 13 days after being removed from a feeding tube last year after a long court battle. Most people watched the saga of Schiavo's life and death and saw families hurting. But somewhere in America, one person watched and saw the chance to make a buck. The listing popped up on eBay Monday with the title, "Terri Schiavo's hospital gown." The seller claims the gown was worn by Schiavo...

They might have done this years ago, but he already had a wife. Michael Schiavo and Jodi Centonze applied for a marriage license in Pinellas County on Friday. She listed her last marriage as ending in divorce on March 29, 1989. He listed his as ending in death on March 31, 2005. Their relationship has long been a curious sidenote in the national right-to-die case of Michael's first wife, Terri Schiavo, who was in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years. Michael Schiavo, 42, has called Jodi Centonze his fiancee for at least six years, relatives said. They live together...

In his first public comments since his wife's death, Michael Schiavo said today that ''I never, in my entire life, thought I would be thrown into such a national debate.... All I wanted to do was carry out my wife's wishes.'' Schiavo spoke at a conference in Minneapolis on medical ethics as several dozen protesters marched outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel where the conference was being held. Wiping away tears, Schiavo described his last moments with his wife, Terri, who died in March after a dramatic court battle to remove her feeding tube. ''Terri didn't die an awful death,'' he...

He's been rebuked by the Vatican, castigated by Congress and slandered on the Internet, but Michael Schiavo was welcomed as a hero Friday by a state organization whose members make end-of-life decisions for people unable to make them for themselves.

TALLAHASSEE - It was one of the shortest speeches of Charlie Crist's career, but as a campaign for governor unfolds, it may prove to be one of the most memorable. Two weeks ago, the Republican attorney general and candidate for governor gave a late-night speech to a roomful of lawyers in Miami where he referred to the judges in the Terri Schiavo case as "heroes." Crist insists he wasn't endorsing court rulings that prevented the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube from being reconnected, but critics view it differently. And by appearing to break his silence in the Schiavo case, Crist has...

The 10th Eucharistic Congress in Atlanta drew about 25,000 believers Saturday, including two from Lawrenceville who arrived just a little late. Sandra Rojas and Refugio Gallegas had missed their bus at St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Lawrenceville. They had to make it on their own to the Georgia International Convention Center near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, asking for directions along the way. Both said the chance to mingle with a rainbow of fellow Catholics was worth the effort. "The best part is to see different races coming together for the one same God," Gallegas said. Catholics heading to the Eucharistic Congress...

TALLAHASSEE - State Rep. Everett Rice of Treasure Island, who served 16 years as Pinellas County sheriff, is running for attorney general. His announcement came the same day Attorney General Charlie Crist filed to run for governor. Rice joins two other Republican lawmakers, Rep. Joe Negron of Stuart and Sen. Burt Saunders of Naples, in seeking to replace Crist. None is well-known statewide, and no Democrat has announced. "The job's coming open, and I had a lot of respect for Charlie Crist. He's leaving it and a lot of people have asked me to do it," Rice said. "I think...

WASHINGTON(BP)-Disabled Americans feel vulnerable in the wake of Terri Schiavo's death and need societal and legal changes if their lives are going to be protected, leaders of two disability organizations said. In the hours after Schiavo died March 31, both Joni Eareckson Tada and Diane Coleman said the brain-damaged Florida woman's death and the events leading to it do not bode well for other severely disabled people unless some changes are implemented. Schiavo, 41, died nearly two weeks after the tube that provided her with food and water was disconnected at a state judge's order. For years, her parents and...

Schindler supporters decry attorney's offer to analyze autopsy report to prove PVS Supporters of the late Terri Schiavo charge the ex-wife of lawyer George Felos is attempting to capitalize on the case of the brain-injured woman who starved to death after a court ordered removal of her feeding tube. Dunedin, Fla., attorney Constance d'Angelis was married to Felos, who represented Terri's husband Michael Schiavo. When Terri Schiavo's condition was argued in court, d'Angelis presented a CT Scan and other medical records to assert Terri was in a "persistent vegetative state." Now, d'Angelis claims she will be available to interpret the...

In an intense life-and-death tug-of-war reminiscent of the Terri Schiavo case, the fate of Ora Mae Magouirk is still raging, despite the transfer Saturday of the 81-year-old widow to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center in Birmingham for treatment of an aorta dissection. In the latest twist to the saga, Magouirk's granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, 36, of LaGrange, Ga, who is also her temporary guardian, barred immediate next-of-kin from visiting the stricken woman. No explanation was given, nor were the relatives notified. When Magouirk's brother, A.B. McLeod, 64, of Anniston, Ala., attempted to visit Magouirk Sunday, the charge nurse said an...

Judge George Greer, the Florida county jurist at the center of the Terri Schiavo case, ruled against a woman who was fighting to keep her husband alive in 2000. While Greer has ruled consistently with husband Michael Schiavo, who seeks to terminate his wife's life by depriving of her of food and water, the parallel case suggests the judge may have a predisposition to removal of any life-support devices rather than an inclination toward the legal guardian. The 2000 case heard by Greer involved the life of St. Petersburg lawyer Blair Clark, a University of South Florida professor. After suffering...

The Florida Legislature, and now the whole country, is engaged in a soul-searching debate about the balance of our right-to-die with dignity and our culture of life respecting every living person no matter the extent of their disability. Terri Schiavo, without uttering a word, has challenged us all to revisit this delicate balance. While respecting the fact that others may consider this debate with the many related issues and come to different conclusions, it falls on the Legislature to develop the defining public policy. The majority of members in the Florida House of Representatives have concluded that if public policy...

By the time you read this, Terri Schiavo may well be dead, and America will have taken the next step down the road to democide. While the brothers Bush may not have found it within their executive powers to prevent a woman from being legally starved to death, they did manage to con an entire nation into thinking that they did not act because they could not. This is most unfortunate, because it is quite clear that neither George Bush nor his brother Jeb ever had any intention of saving Mrs. Schiavo from death by starvation. Like Pontius Pilate, they...

STARVATION: DAY 8 The judge who tried the Terri Schiavo case and most recently rejected Gov. Jeb Bush's request to intervene, received a campaign contribution from the lawyer pressing for the brain-injured woman's death, raising questions of a conflict of interest. According to Florida's Department of State, Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge George W. Greer received a contribution of $250 for his 2004 re-election campaign from Felos & Felos, the law firm of George Felos. Felos, known as a "right-to-die" advocate, represents Terri Schiavo's estranged husband, Michael Schiavo, who won a court order from Greer to have the woman's life-sustaining...

They met by chance at a dentist's office. Neither was searching for love, friends say. She had been through a divorce. His wife lived in a nursing home. The years had left him heartbroken and lonely, friends say. He bonded with the new woman over dinners and long talks. It was complicated, but they fell in love, friends say. Still, Michael Schiavo has always made it very clear: "He has one wife, and her name is Terri," said a family friend, Gloria Centonze. "He does not refer to anyone else as his wife, and never has." How, then, to explain...

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - After a federal appeals court panel rebuffed them yet again, Terri Schiavo's parents made another desperate attempt to keep their brain-damaged daughter alive, telling a judge that she tried to say "I want to live" just minutes before her feeding tube was removed a week ago. Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer was expected to announce a decision by noon Saturday on the motion by Bob and Mary Schindler claiming their daughter said "AHHHHH" and "WAAAAAAA" when asked to repeat the phrase "I want to live." The appeal is seen as a long shot because Greer was...

WASHINGTON—Despite warnings that Terri Schiavo is nearing death, a Florida federal judge has slowed the frenetic pace of events surrounding reinsertion of a tube to feed the woman whose plight has become a symbol of America's wrenching right-to-die debate. U.S. District Judge James Whittemore yesterday reserved judgment in the case, which drew more than 260 American legislators and President George W. Bush back to Washington for an extraordinary Palm Sunday debate, leading to yesterday's court hearing. Bush was awakened at 1:11 a.m. to sign a bill moving the case to federal court after it passed a two-thirds majority in the...

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: 'She was once here. She was once one of us,' said 17-year-old Chelsea Balerno, who attends Archbishop Wood High School, where Terri Schiavo had been a student. Terri Schindler carried a cascade of white flowers on her wedding day as she drifted down the aisle of Our Lady of Good Counsel, the church she knew so well, and beamed at the first man she ever dated, the first man she ever kissed, the first man who told her he loved her. His name was Michael Schiavo. He was blond, tall, handsome. Before a priest and parents, family...