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Friday, March 25, 2005
View from patient inside the hospice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ed Emerson, 71, has been been watching the protests and media activity at Woodside hospice from the inside — as a patient.
Emerson, who rolled out on to the ground today on an electric scooter, said he has spent a month in the room across the hall from Terri Schiavo.
“All I saw was people coming and going from the young lady’s room. I saw the police officers,” he said.
Emerson praised the Pinellas Park, Fla., hospice and its staff and said his heart and lung condition had improved at the facility. A month ago, he moved into a small apartment in a separate section of the hospice.
He said he had been one of the “four musketeers” with three other patients, but the other three have died, two in the last three weeks since protesters began gathering outside.
Emerson said patients’ visitors have no trouble getting past police barricades as long as they are on approved lists.
Of the Schiavo case, he said, “I don’t have an opinion. It’s up to the judges.”
Gayle White
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Trespassing arrests in Florida
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - Five adults and three children were arrested for trespassing early Friday afternoon for attempting to cross a police barricade to take cups of water to Terri Schiavo.
The Rev. Bill Dunsee, 40, of Warsaw, Ohio, quoted scripture to explain why he was willing to go to jail.
“Jesus said, ‘I was thirsty and you gave me water,’” he said.
Dunsee calls court orders withholding food and water from the brain-damaged woman “the Roe v. Wade of euthanasia.”
10-year-old Joshua Heldreth, of Charlotte, N.C., said he was willing to be arrested because, “I don’t want her to die. I care about her.”
Asked whether he was scared of being arrested, he said, “No, God is with me.” “He doesn’t understand why anyone would deny anybody water,” said his dad, Scott, who planned to sign for his son’s release.
Permalink | Categories: Schiavo case
Petition: Schiavo tried to say ‘I want to live’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A petition to a federal appeals court in Atlanta today claims that Terri Schiavo tried to tell her lawyer and her family “I want to live” the day her feeding tube was removed.
The petition, filed this afternoon in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said that on March 18, Schiavo said “Ahhhhhhh” and then followed that by “summoning] all the strength that she had” and added, “Waaaaaaa.”
“At that point, Terri had a look of anguish on her face that I had never seen before and she seemed to be struggling hard, but was unable to finish the sentence,” attorney Barbara J. Weller said in an affidavit filed with the petition asking that the severely brain-damaged woman’s feeding tube be re-inserted.
Weller’s statement also claims that Schiavo “laughed out loud” when she heard Jesus’s name after being told that “Jesus would stay right by [your]side.”
The petition, filed on behalf of her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, represents the second time the appeals court has heard the case this week. Early Wednesday, the court, by a 2-1 vote declined to order a federal judge in Tampa to hear evidence in the case.
Today’s filing calls removal of food and hydration to Schiavo an illegal “mercy killing” which violates Florida law. The petition also claims that Schiavo’s constitutional rights are being violated because the courts are not hearing new evidence that the woman has some cognitive functions.
A response filed by Schiavo’s husband and guardian, Michael, called those arguments “a naked emotional appeal.”
“As demonstrated by appellants’ brief, they have abandoned all pretense of arguing law,” his petition states. “Appellants now literally throw themselves on the mercy of the court with ‘new’ evidence about Mrs. Schiavo’s medical condition, including a doctor who sat in her room but never examined her and two individuals who suddenly have remembered that they saw Mrs. Schiavo respond to them.”
The husband’s petition says the parents are “flagrantly propandiz(ing) this matter by describing it a ‘mercy killing‘ case.” and are “repackage the same arguments rejected by the district court and this court two days ago.”
The appeals court was reviewing the arguments late Friday afternoon.
Permalink | Categories: Schiavo case
Schiavo family says Terri is ‘peaceful’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As advocates of Terri Schiavo’s parents make a desperate appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, her husband’s supporters have been pleading his case on the airwaves.
Brian Schiavo, brother of Michael Schiavo, tells CNN that Terri Schiavo is “peaceful” in her hospice bed.
“I will tell a lie detector test if I have to — she is not in pain,” he said.
He said Michael caresses and kisses Terri when he visits her, and she does not indicate to him she is in any pain.
George Felos, lawyer for Michael Schiavo, tells CNN that Michael has been with Terri “continuously.”
Asked by Fox News why Michael Schiavo did not divorce his wife after becoming involved with another woman, Felos said, “Michael is dedicated to Terri, he loves Terri, he made a promise to Terri. He knew if he walked away her wishes would not be carried out.”
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Schiavo’s father: Best hope is 11th Circuit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The father of Terri Schiavo said today that the family’s best hope is with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“We’re making a strong appeal to the 11th District,” said Bob Schindler outside the hospice where his daughter lives. “We’re encouraging the judges, when we make the appeal, to make the right decision. We have some of the best legal minds in the country working on this. It’s not that we have poor attorneys that we have not been very successful, but I do think that what was presented in federal court last night was very viable.
“Our best hope right now is in the appellate court. Terry is weakening, she is down to her last hours. Something has to be done and done quickly.”
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Judge denies latest Schiavo request
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A federal judge refused Friday to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, another in a string of defeats for the parents of the brain-damaged woman in their battle against her husband to keep her alive.
For a second time, U.S. District Judge James Whittemore ruled against the parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, who had asked him to grant their emergency request to restore her feeding tube while he considers a lawsuit they filed.
Hours after the decision, the Schindlers appealed again to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to review Whittemore’s ruling. The Atlanta court refused before to overturn a previous Whittemore ruling.
Permalink | Categories: Schiavo case
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