Judge Rules Schiavo Law Unconstitutional

CLEARWATER - Gov. Jeb Bush and the Legislature violated at least four provisions of the Florida Constitution when they took action last year to prevent the death of Terri Schiavo, a judge ruled Thursday.

Bush immediately appealed Circuit Judge Douglas Baird's ruling that the measure, dubbed "Terri's Law," violates the brain-damaged woman's right to privacy in declining medical care.

Baird also found the hastily drafted law, which allowed Bush to order that Schiavo's feeding tube be reinserted after she went six days without nourishment in October, was an encroachment on judicial powers, among other constitutional issues.

Bush's attorney, Ken Connor, said that Terri's Law provides an extra level of protection for a disabled woman who has been unable to articulate her wishes for more than 14 years.

"Courts don't have a monopoly on protecting the weak and feeble," Connor said.

The 40-year-old woman is a "vulnerable individual whose death decisions are being made by a husband who is consorting with another woman, has fathered two children with another woman ... who stands to inherit his wife's estate and who never told a civil jury of her alleged wishes," Connor said.

No Questions For Husband

Baird's ruling also means the governor will not be able to question Michael Schiavo about his motives for saying his wife, who suffered heart failure and severe brain damage in 1990 at age 26, would not want to be kept alive with a feeding tube, Connor said.

"Michael Schiavo has run like a scalded dog from any attempts to put him under oath," Bush's attorney said.

Michael Schiavo's attorney George Felos said Connor is engaging in "demagoguery" by raising emotional issues that have nothing to do with whether the governor has the right to intrude on a private matter that has been decided by a series of court rulings.

Felos has represented Schiavo in a six-year battle to gain court permission to remove his wife's feeding tube over the objections of his in- laws.

"If anyone is acting like a scalded dog, it's the governor's representative and the governor who were rebuked by this judicial decision," Felos said. "What you don't hear from them is discussion of the constitutional issues."

Michael Schiavo gave two sworn statements to attorneys representing Bob and Mary Schindler before testifying at a January 2000 nonjury trial to decide their daughter's fate, Felos said.

After that trial, Circuit Judge George Greer ruled testimony from Michael Schiavo and two of his relatives proved that, before her illness, Terri Schiavo made statements indicating she would not want to be kept alive with no hope of recovery.

Greer and a succession of appeals courts have concluded Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state with no awareness of her situation and no realistic hope of improvement.

The Schindlers contend their daughter reacts to them when they visit her. Their medical experts have said that Terri Schiavo could improve if given aggressive and in some cases unconventional therapy.

At the time of the trial, the Schindlers alleged Michael Schiavo wanted his wife out of the way so he could inherit about $700,000 awarded for her perpetual care by jurors in a 1993 medical malpractice case. That money has been spent, much of it for legal bills in the battle over Terri Schiavo's fate, court records show.

Michael Schiavo countered his in- laws coveted their daughter's estate, and he offered to donate leftover funds to charity, an offer the Schindlers spurned as insincere.

Case Headed For High Court

Felos and Connor said they expect the Florida Supreme Court will ultimately determine the constitutionality of Terri's Law. Felos said he might ask the 2nd District Court of Appeal, to which Connor appealed Baird's decision, to declare the case an issue of great public importance so the high court can take immediate jurisdiction.

In the meantime, Bush is entitled to an immediate stay of Baird's ruling and Felos said he has agreed not to seek court permission to remove Terri Schiavo's feeding tube until the constitutionality of Terri's Law is settled.

"I spoke to the governor's attorney in advance of the order, and we agreed to not remove Terri's feeding tube before they could file an appeal. The last thing we want is a situation where her feeding would be started and stopped repeatedly. That would be an affront to her personal dignity," Felos said.

October's abortive tube removal marked the second time Terri Schiavo's liquid nourishment was halted on court orders. In April 2001, the tube was removed on one judge's order and then reinserted two days later after a second judge ordered that feeding be resumed.

On Thursday, Bob Schindler decried the latest setback in his family's battle to keep Terri Schiavo alive.

"These Pinellas County judges have displayed an utterly cavalier attitude and a complete disregard for the rule of law. ... This current order is nothing more than an unjust killing of a young woman who has demonstrated time and again that she very much wants to live," he said in a prepared statement.