Has the Schiavo case Become a Political Football?

The latest Time poll now also has Bush's job rating dropping by 5% within a week, to the lowest point it's been at since early July last year.

Serves him right. I think that finally his skullduggery has finally jumped back and bitten him in the ass. Maybe it'll finally get through his poor little brain that he is President Bush, not King George. Phooey!

I only just saw this one... I guess this is a little editorial comment, but in case you are actually not aware, this is the "nuclear option" to which I was referring:



From a New York Times editorial reprinted here:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030605G.shtml

Sozo,
The constitution states that only a simple majority is needed to comfitm presidential nominees.
Therre is nothing that states a 60 vote majority is needed.
So,if Cheney does rule that way,all he is doing is going along with the constitution.
It is the dems that have tried to sidestep the constitution this way.

Oh, and thank you for the compliment, new guy. I think I'll just call you blue. I do have garters, but I save them for special occasions with only one favored person. And for him, I have other things too.

Nice to meet you. I hope you'll stick around. I've enjoyed your posts so far.

BUSH AND SCHIAVO....From Sunday Morning Talk:



This is amazing. Bush says he didn't want to return to Washington to sign a bill that would have infused government intrusion into our private lives.

And yet, he had no problem NOT showing up for Tsunami victims, high school gun victims, the 9/11 carnage, and the continuing deaths of our troops in Iraq.

What an unbelievable piece of work this bastard is...

I guess Congress didn't see any of the polls. Amazing, their gall.
******************


Congress Ready to Again Debate End-of-Life Issues
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Published: March 28, 2005


WASHINGTON, March 27 - After a string of fruitless legal and legislative efforts, the central question in the Terri Schiavo case - Who makes end-of-life decisions when the patient's wishes are disputed? - is headed back to Capitol Hill, where debate over broader legislation has already begun.



On Sunday, lawmakers of both parties agreed that Congress has a role to play in such cases and should contemplate legislation that would give added legal recourse to patients like Ms. Schiavo. While it is difficult to predict whether such a measure could pass, the Schiavo case has clearly pushed thorny questions about end-of-life care to the fore on Capitol Hill, as well as in state legislatures around the nation.

The Republican-controlled House already passed a bill that would allow the federal courts to review cases like Ms. Schiavo's, in which the patient has left no written instructions, the family is at odds and state courts have ordered a feeding tube to be withdrawn. That bill evolved into one that was narrowly tailored to Ms. Schiavo.

Now some Democrats, prodded by advocates for the disabled, say Congress should consider whether such a law is needed.

"I think we should look into this and very possibly legislate it," said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, who opposed Congressional action in the Schiavo case. Mr. Frank was speaking on Sunday on the ABC News program "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." Mr. Frank added: "I think Congress needs to do more. Because I've spoken with a lot of disability groups who are concerned that, even where a choice is made to terminate life, it might be coerced by circumstances."

In the Senate, Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, has also been consulting with advocates for disability rights and is preparing to introduce legislation along the lines of the bill that the House passed, a spokeswoman said. Senator Harkin, an author of the Americans With Disabilities Act, was one of the few Democrats in the Senate who spoke in favor of the so-called private relief measure that allowed a federal court to review Ms. Schiavo's case.

The question of Ms. Schiavo, who has lingered in what doctors describe as a "persistent vegetative state" for 15 years, has been characterized by the news media and politicians as a "right to life issue," fueled by Christian conservatives and opponents of abortion. But advocates for the disabled are also playing a strong role, enlisting Democratic lawmakers like Mr. Harkin.

"We very much wish that Congress would intervene on a broader level and create meaningful protections for people who are in guardianship," said Diane Coleman, president of Not Dead Yet, a disability rights group that is focused exclusively on end-of-life issues. "It's not a simple right and left issue, in spite of how it's being portrayed."

Ms. Coleman called the measure that was passed by the House "a step in the right direction."

Yet it is unclear whether Christian conservatives and disability rights advocates can agree on what action Congress should take. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Christian conservative group, said on Sunday that his organization was working with states to urge them to pass measures that would prevent the withdrawal of nutrition from patients like Ms. Schiavo.

Mr. Perkins said state action was "the preferred route," adding, "In certain circumstances there may need to be some federal action, but I would not advocate a broad brush stroke of the federal government to try to prevent this from happening again."

In pressing for the broader House bill, Representative Dave Weldon, Republican of Florida, who is the measure's chief author, has likened Ms. Schiavo to a death row inmate. Such inmates are automatically accorded a federal court review; so, too, he has said, should patients like Ms. Schiavo be.

Speaking on ABC opposite Mr. Frank on Sunday, Representative Weldon said, "I had some of the most liberal members of the House of Representatives tell me they were glad I brought this bill forward."

Mr. Frank, however, disagreed with the death penalty analogy. But when asked if he would like to see legislation in the area, he said: "Oh, yes, I think - but I would like it to be with hearings. I wouldn't like it rushed through without any chance to debate it."

He went on to say that one thing Congress could do would be to "stop cutting Medicaid and stop cutting housing for the people who are disabled and stop cutting back on disabled people, so that they don't feel the kind of economic pressures that disability groups tell me they sometimes feel."

As to Mr. Weldon's measure, whether it could pass in Congress is unclear; the bill attracted opposition in the Senate, which is why Congress passed the narrower bill. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, objected, in part because he feared the Weldon measure would interfere with an assisted-suicide law in his state.

In an interview last week, Mr. Wyden said he did not like the idea of "Congress playing medical czar" and added, "What I'm hoping for is that Congress will step back a little bit and let the passions cool."

Already, the Senate health committee has scheduled a hearing next week to debate the Schiavo case and discuss "the urgent need for Congress to examine current health care practices used in the care of non-ambulatory individuals," according to a statement by the chairman, Senator Michael B. Enzi, Republican of Wyoming.

The hearing was initially scheduled for Monday; in a fruitless effort to keep Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube from being withdrawn, Mr. Enzi called Ms. Schiavo and her husband, Michael, as witnesses, noting pointedly that it was a federal crime for anyone to impede their testimony. Later, when Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube was withdrawn, Mr. Enzi postponed the hearing until April 6.

mysteryman, not exactly, but perhaps the discussion belongs on another thread. Would you like to start one?

It says no such thing.

US Constitution, Art. II, sec. 3: He [i.e. the president] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law....

Nothing about simple majorities there at all. In fact, the constitution says nothing at all about the senate's role in approving judges from courts other than the supreme court: that process is handled by legislation (see, e.g., 28 USC 44)

joefromchicago -

Quoting from the constitution? Isn't that a little harsh, expecting people to actually read the constitution?

You must be one of those liberal professors that the Florida legislature (and several other states) is working to protect us from. Just think, expecting us to believe the constitution over RW spin. I think I'll trot out to the court and file that suit right now.

Art.2 section 3 deals with convening congress..."Section 3 - State of the Union, Convening Congress

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States."


But from Art 2 sec 2...we get this..."Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law....

This clause gives the president the power to appoint any federal judges.
So,since the constitution doesnt give the Senate any responsibility for federal judges,then you must agree that the President doesnt have to go to the Senate at all.

Quite right, I quoted the clause correctly but gave the wrong citation (my link, however, is accurate). Thanks for the correction.


Depends on whether inferior court judges are considered "officers of the United States." If they are, then the clause is clear: the president "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint" such judges (emphasis added). Your argument only makes sense if: (1) inferior court judges are not considered "officers of the United States," or (2) the clause actually appeared as you have quoted it, without the language about the advice and consent of the senate.

The husband of brain-damaged Florida woman Terri Schiavo has ordered an autopsy after she dies to silence allegations his plan to cremate her body is aimed at hiding something, his lawyer said on Monday.

As supporters of Schiavo's parents took their fight to prolong her life to Washington 10 days after her feeding was stopped, Michael Schiavo's lawyer, George Felos, said her pulse had become "thready" and she had not passed urine for a while -- a possible sign of approaching death.

He said Michael Schiavo, who has been pitted against the parents in a seven-year legal conflict over whether to allow Schiavo to die, requested an official autopsy to show the "massive" extent of the brain damage she suffered in 1990.

"We didn't think it was appropriate to talk about an autopsy prior to Mrs. Schiavo's death," Felos told reporters outside his law office in Dunedin, Florida.

"But because claims have been made by, I guess, opponents of carrying out her wishes that there was some motive behind the cremation of Mrs. Schiavo we felt it was necessary to make that announcement today."

Disagreement over the planned cremation rather than the full burial demanded by Schiavo's Roman Catholic parents has been a subplot to the long legal battle.

The fate of the woman, who has been in a persistent vegetative state since suffering cardiac arrest, has become a cause for Christian conservatives and drawn in Congress, President Bush and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

State courts have accepted testimony from Michael Schiavo and others that she did not want to be kept alive artificially, but her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, disagree, and maintain she tries to communicate with them.

Pressured by the Christian right, Congress passed a special law that allowed the Schindlers to take their case to federal court, and President Bush cut short a vacation to sign it.

The effort proved in vain as court after court -- all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court -- rejected a flurry of petitions since the feeding tube was disconnected on March 18.

Nevertheless, supporters of Bob and Mary Schindler again appealed for federal or state intervention.

Joe and Mystery,

You may want to look at the full 2nd paragraph of Section 2


All officials of the Federal govt are required to be voted on by the Senate unless laws have been passed saying they don't have to be. Since Congress has never passed a law saying otherwise, all Federal judges are based on 'advice and consent'.

I'm sure most of you have been watching the news. If you have you have seen one of two things if not both. You have seen people pissed at the govt (specifically the GOP) for either getting involved with the Terry case or for not doing enough. I was listening to the Michael Savage show during lunch and couldn't help be hear how mad he was that Jeb Bush and the President haven't done enough to save the life of Terry. During the day while I was driving to school I was listening to Air America and how mad the host on that show was that they got involved in the first place.

So the question is, which wrath is worse? The wrath of those from the not enough side or from the shouldn't have done a thing in the first place side?

Perhaps the bigger question is which is more threatening to democracy and the US constitution.

The side that thinks not enough was done is a smaller side so is less danger for politicians as a whole when it comes to election time. But that side may make up the deciding factor in an election for some politicians. My personal viewpoint is a politician that depends on both sides to get elected is going to be hurting.

Expending all this energy for somebody that has absolutely no chance of regaining her cognition is a big waste of money, energy and time. There are plenty of the living that need medical care that these yokels should be concerned about. They have lost all sense of balance and logic.

Colorado Court Bars Execution Because Jurors Consulted Bible
By KIRK JOHNSON

Published: March 29, 2005


DENVER, March 28 - In a sharply divided ruling, Colorado's highest court on Monday upheld a lower court's decision throwing out the sentence of a man who was given the death penalty after jurors consulted the Bible in reaching a verdict. The Bible, the court said, constituted an improper outside influence and a reliance on what the court called a "higher authority."



"The judicial system works very hard to emphasize the rarified, solemn and sequestered nature of jury deliberations," the majority said in a 3-to-2 decision by a panel of the Colorado Supreme Court. "Jurors must deliberate in that atmosphere without the aid or distraction of extraneous texts."

The ruling involved the conviction of Robert Harlan, who was found guilty in 1995 of raping and murdering a cocktail waitress near Denver. After Mr. Harlan's conviction, the judge in the case - as Colorado law requires - sent the jury off to deliberate about the death penalty with an instruction to think beyond the narrow confines of the law. Each juror, the judge told the panel, must make an "individual moral assessment," in deciding whether Mr. Harlan should live.

The jurors voted unanimously for death. The State Supreme Court's decision changes that sentence to life in prison without parole.

In the decision on Monday, the dissenting judges said the majority had confused the internal codes of right and wrong that juries are expected to possess in such weighty moral matters with the outside influences that are always to be avoided, like newspaper articles or television programs about the case. The jurors consulted Bibles, the minority said, not to look for facts or alternative legal interpretations, but for wisdom.

"The biblical passages the jurors discussed constituted either a part of the jurors' moral and religious precepts or their general knowledge, and thus were relevant to their court-sanctioned moral assessment," the minority wrote.

Legal experts said that Colorado was unusual in its language requiring jurors in capital felony cases to explicitly consult a moral compass. Most states that have restored the death penalty weave in a discussion of moral factors, lawyers said, along with the burden that jurors must decide whether aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors in voting on execution.

"In Colorado it's a more distinct instruction," said Bob Grant, who was the prosecutor in the Harlan case. Mr. Grant said no decision had been made yet on whether to appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

Legal scholars say the connection between hard legal logic and the softer, deeper world of values is always present in jury rooms, whether acknowledged or not.

"The court says we're asking you to be moral men and women, to make a moral judgment of the right thing to do," said Thane Rosenbaum, a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law in New York City, and author of the book "The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What's Right" (HarperCollins, 2004). "But then we say the juror cheated because he brought in a book that forms the basis of his moral universe," Professor Rosenbaum said. "The thing is, he would have done it anyway, in his head."

Other legal experts say the Colorado decision touches on an issue that courts do not like to talk about: that jurors, under traditions dating to the days of English common law, can consider higher authority all they want, and can convict or acquit using whatever internal thoughts and discussions they consider appropriate.

In this instance, lawyers said, there was simply a clearer trail of evidence, with admissions by the jurors during Mr. Harlan's appeal that Bibles had been used in their discussion. One juror testified she studied Romans and Leviticus, including Leviticus 24, which includes the famous articulation of Old Testament justice: "eye for eye, tooth for tooth."

Professor Howard J. Vogel, who teaches ethics at Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul and has a master's degree in theology as well as a law degree, said, "I don't think it's a religious text that's the problem here, but rather whether something is being used that trumps the law of the state."

The Bible is hardly monolithic about what constitutes justice. Some legal experts say the jurors might just as easily have found guidance that led them to vote to spare Mr. Harlan's life. Lawyers for Mr. Harlan also specifically urged the jurors to consider biblical wisdom, according to the Supreme Court's decision, with a request that they find mercy in their hearts "as God ultimately took mercy on Abraham."

The lawyers also made several references to Mr. Harlan's soul and his habit of reading the Bible with his father, the court said.

Kathleen Lord, a lawyer for Mr. Harlan, did not return repeated calls.

Mr. Harlan was convicted of kidnapping a waitress, Rhonda Maloney, and raping her. She escaped and flagged down a motorist, Jaquie Creazzo. Mr. Harlan caught up with the two women, shot Ms. Creazzo, leaving her paralyzed, then beat and killed Ms. Maloney.

To my way of thinking, it never had much to do with chance of recovery. The only real factor for me was whether she was aware of her existence and liked it. In fact, people did and do disagree on this point, including the doctors. I am convinced that if she knew she existed and wanted to continue to, there existed no right on Earth to starve her, and, if she did, no court or legislature had the moral authority to do it.

Thanks, Brandon, for your no-doubt expert opinion on what Terri Schiavo's existence is, gleaned by your no-doubt extensive voyeurism, er, research online, via television sound bites, and radio commentary.

Nevermind what actual doctors with actual specialization and actual experience who have actually examined the actual patient might have to say....