Guest
Contributor
Jan LaRue
Jan LaRue
is Chief Counsel and Legal Studies Director for Concerned
Women of America. [go to LaRue index]
Too
Bad Terri’s
Not a Terrorist or a Condemned Murder
I’m fed up with liberal hypocrisy...
[Jan
LaRue] 3/25/05
I’m a conservative Christian
attorney who has practiced criminal and juvenile defense. I
wholeheartedly advocate that
no matter how heinous the crime, the accused must be afforded
his or her constitutional rights. That includes appeals and writs
of habeas corpus to obtain federal review after state court remedies
have been exhausted. I support the rights of convicted criminals
to have DNA testing that may prove their innocence, no matter
how many courts have reviewed their cases.
Question: When it
comes to Terri Schiavo, where are the usual liberal civil-rights
advocates, the criminal defense bar, liberal
law professors? A few are speaking out for Terri’s rights,
but very few. And I applaud their consistency.
Everybody agrees that
Terri’s wishes should be paramount,
but why is a hearsay statement supposedly said 20 years ago credible?
And why does anyone think that if she said it, she was talking
about a feeding tube? Who considered food and water to be artificial
life support back then?
What lawyer wouldn’t challenge probable cause for a search
warrant based on the kind of stale and highly suspect hearsay
that Judge Greer found to be clear and convincing evidence of
Terri’s wishes, sufficient for him to order her death?
Where are those who
file suit when some terrorist detainee in Guantanamo Bay didn’t get a cookie on his lunch tray or
suffered the “torture” of having a guard dog growl
at him? Where are those who file every motion, brief or appeal
based on any and every argument they can think of in order to
save the life of a serial murderer or a child-killer? Why aren’t
they making arguments and filing briefs for Terri? They’ve
either become mute or they’re in the media arguing against
the kind of zealous advocacy on behalf of Terri that they regularly
engage in.
And no surprise—where is the ACLU?—advocating for
Terri’s death while they advocate for convicted murders
who killed and sodomized a young boy in Massachusetts.
There’s constant harping about how many judges have reviewed
Terri’s case. So what? None of them has reviewed the evidence
to see if, as a matter of law, it’s sufficient to sustain
the court’s orders. That’s what Congress ordered
to be done in “Terri’s law.” But it wasn’t.
Suddenly it’s all about state rights and limiting review
to state courts and federalism. And how dare Congress interfere
by enacting a statute that gives Terri the same kind of federal
review that Scott Peterson will have? The reason “Terri’s
law” applies only to her is because the Senate Democrats
refused to agree to unanimous consent to pass a bill unless it
applied only to Terri. How convenient that they now blame Republicans
who wanted a bill that would apply to anyone in Terri’s
circumstances.
In Robles v. Coughlin,
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that “the Eighth Amendment prohibition against
cruel and unusual punishment does require that prisoners be served ‘nutritionally
adequate food that is prepared and served under conditions which
do not present an immediate danger to the health and well being
of the inmates who consume it.’”
Too bad Terri isn’t confined in a prison instead of a
hospice. That’s where her husband placed her after he won
a large award in a malpractice case, where he promised to care
for her.
In 1984, the New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld a trial court
order that authorized a prison warden to feed and nourish a prison
inmate over his objection, even though he was mentally competent
and wanted to die by starvation. Here we have a judge ordering
the removal of food and water to cause starvation. Even if we
knew that's what Terri wants, Florida law makes aiding and abetting
a suicide a felony, and there's no black-robed exemption.
Terri Schiavo isn’t dying from a disease, she isn’t
on a ventilator, she doesn’t meet Florida’s definition
of “persistent vegetative state,” and she committed
no crime. She’s being killed by a judge on the flimsiest
of evidence.
Some missing advocates need to step up to the Bar. tOR
copyright
2005 Concerned Women of America
§
|
