'Terri's Law' loses last battle
The nation's highest court ends Gov. Jeb Bush's attempt to keep Terri Schiavo alive. But her parents' fight continues.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
Published January 25, 2005
The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to step into the Terri Schiavo case, ending Gov. Jeb Bush's legal fight to extend the Pinellas County woman's life.
The court refused without comment to review a Florida Supreme Court decision that struck down a state law allowing Bush to reinsert Schiavo's feeding tube after it was removed.
But with a lower court stay active, Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, still cannot have doctors remove the feeding tube to carry out what he says are his wife's wishes.
Nobody is certain how long that stay will remain in effect. It could be weeks or even months in a case that already has been litigated nearly seven years.
And Terri Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, still have several legal challenges pending in lower courts that could stop him.
"Terri is awake, she is aware," Robert Schindler told a crowd at an anti-abortion rally in Washington. "She would be here today if the courts would allow her to be. It's just pathetic what they've done to her. It's judicial homicide."
Last September, the Florida Supreme Court last declared "Terri's Law" unconstitutional, calling it an improper breach of the separation of powers between the state's judicial and executive branches.
Bush said he would continue to do whatever he could to help the Schindlers, though he has no authority to intervene further.
"My heart goes out to the family," he said. "I don't take (the decision) as a rebuke. ... I'm disappointed but not surprised."
George Felos, the Dunedin lawyer representing Schiavo's husband, hailed the court's decision but said it's impossible to know when, or even if, the tube would once again be removed.
Michael Schiavo has generally not commented on the case in recent years.
"We're just hoping at this stage in the proceedings that the courts will finally say, "No more delay. It's time to have Terri's wishes carried out,"' Felos said.
Lawmakers hastily passed "Terri's Law" in October 2003 after Schiavo's feeding tube had been removed for six days. The measure allowed Bush to order Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted.
Schiavo, 41, has been in what her husband says is an irreversible vegetative state for almost 15 years, her brain essentially destroyed. Her parents oppose him and believe their daughter, who left no living will, has some level of consciousness, even saying she can communicate remedially.
Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer ruled after a trial in 2000 that Schiavo, based on statements she made before lapsing into her condition, would not want to be kept alive by artificial means.
The case has a complicated history and has bounced between several different courts while attracting international attention. Right now, Michael Schiavo is prevented from having nutrition and water withheld from his wife by a stay that Greer issued late last year.
Greer had rejected a bid by the Schindlers for a new trial to determine what their daughter's wishes would be in light of a recent declaration by Pope John Paul II. The pope said providing food and water even by artificial means is "moral and obligatory."
And the Schindlers said their daughter, as a devout Catholic, would not want anything done that would run counter to the pope.
The Schindlers appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal and Greer issued a stay pending that appeal.
On Dec. 29, the appeals court refused to overturn Greer's decision. The Schindlers asked the court to reconsider its ruling, a request the appeals court infrequently grants.
A decision is now pending on that request for a rehearing.
If it declines the request (the court has no deadline to decide), the court would finalize its decision 15 days later by issuing a mandate, though it could decide to move faster. Greer's stay would automatically be lifted when that mandate is released.
But even then, the Schindlers still have two motions pending before Greer: one to remove Schiavo as his wife's guardian and a second arguing Terri Schiavo's due process rights have been violated.
If they lose those motions, the Schindlers could ask for another stay pending further appeal.
Randall Marshall, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which has worked with Felos to challenge "Terri's Law," said the courts have decided that Terri Schiavo would want to die.
"Whether one agrees with that decision or not, it's not up to the governor or the Legislature to simply overnight set aside that determination," Marshall said. David Gibbs III, the attorney representing the Schindlers, said the governor's case is finished. But he said he was hopeful that other challenges may be successful.
"When the courts look at this situation, I'm confident that they will err on the side of life," Gibbs said. "The family is grateful to Gov. Bush and his legal team. "Terri's Law' protected Terri and kept her alive to this day."
--Times staff writers Alisa Ulferts and Bill Adair contributed to this report.