Error Misled Judge, Schiavo Parents Say

CLEARWATER - A mistake about a famous precedent to the Terri Schiavo case may have caused the trial judge to wrongly conclude Schiavo would not want to be kept alive with the help of a feeding tube, her parents contend.

Judge George Greer's ruling in February 2000 discounted the testimony of a key witness for parents Bob and Mary Schindler based on the mistaken assumption that Karen Ann Quinlan died in the mid-1970s after a celebrated New Jersey court case resulted in her removal from life support.

Quinlan went on to live nine years without life support, a fact that went unmentioned when a former close friend of Terri Schiavo testified in 2000 that Schiavo expressed disapproval of the Quinlan family decision to remove the woman from life support, Schindler attorney David Gibbs said Wednesday.

The witness said the exchange took place in 1982 when Schiavo was 18 or 19. Greer later concluded it took place six years earlier.

"We believe the clear and convincing evidence no longer exists that Terri would have wanted to die," Gibbs said.

Greer has ordered that Schiavo's feeding tube be removed March 18. She is expected to die a week to 10 days after nutrition and hydration are halted.

"Obviously, time is ticking," Gibbs said of the urgency of the motion he filed Wednesday asking Greer to overturn the verdict he reached after a nonjury trial in January 2000.

In a ruling issued the following month, Greer questioned the credibility of witness Diane Christine Meyer.

Greer concluded that Meyer was mistaken about the date of her discussion with Schiavo and speculated that it occurred when the two were children, not young adults.

The judge went on to conclude that testimony from husband Michael Schiavo and his relatives showed Terri Schiavo made comments as an adult indicating she would not want to be kept alive by artificial means with no hope of improvement.

Terri Schiavo has been in what her husband's doctors testified is a persistent vegetative state since suffering heart failure in 1990 at age 26.

Bob and Mary Schindler contend their daughter reacts to them and could improve with therapy.

Michael Schiavo has been fighting the Schindlers for almost seven years for court permission to remove his wife's life-sustaining feeding tube.

"This motion is worse than frivolous and an abuse of the legal system," Schiavo attorney George Felos said Wednesday.

Greer discounted Meyer's testimony for a number of reasons, including her admission that she blamed Michael Schiavo for breaking up her close friendship with Terri Schiavo, Felos said.

The issue of Meyer's credibility should have been raised years ago when the Schindlers first appealed Greer's ruling, Felos said. He disputed Gibbs' assertion that the Schindler legal team only recently realized Quinlan did not die until 1985.

In his 2000 judgment, Greer wrote that the conversation Meyer testified to probably took place in the mid-1970s when she and Terri Schiavo were children because Meyer recounted the conversation as occurring in the present tense.

"The court is mystified as to how these present tense verbs would have been used some six years after the death of Karen Ann Quinlan," the judge wrote.

Also Wednesday, Greer heard arguments from an attorney representing The Tampa Tribune and WFLA, Channel 8, in favor of opening court documents that could show why the state Department of Children & Families is now investigating accusations that Terri Schiavo has been or is being abused.

Similar allegations have been made repeatedly during the past five years, yet the state agency only now has chosen to get involved after Gov. Jeb Bush said he would do anything within the law to help keep Terri Schiavo alive, attorney Gregg Thomas said.

DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi, appearing before the Tiger Bay Club in St. Petersburg, said "no" when asked whether her agency is being used by the governor.

"The allegation was screened and is from a substantive, credible source with firsthand knowledge of possible abuse," Hadi said.

Greer said he will rule today on the request to open up the DCF documents to public inspection.