Implications of Schiavo

Implications of Schiavo

By David R. Corder

Associate Editor

George Felos misjudged the significance of Michael Schiavo's question. At their first meeting, the two talked in "broad and general" terms about Schiavo's desire to remove the feeding tube that kept his wife alive.

The request didn't seem all that extraordinary to Felos, a Dunedin attorney who had successfully argued a precedent-setting right-to-die case in the late 1980s.

Schiavo's request didn't appear to challenge existing case law the Florida Supreme Court had decided in 1990 in the guardianship of Estelle Browning.

"Words of irony," Felos mused as he spoke to a crowd of legal professionals gathered Jan. 27 at the Stetson University College of Law and its Center for Excellence in Elder Law.

It had been almost a year since Stetson law professors Michael Allen and Rebecca Morgan began plans for the daylong legal conference at the college's Gulfport campus. However, the timing couldn't have been more relevant.

Days earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to hear an appeal of Terri's law, the controversial state law that Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature passed to keep Michael Schiavo's wife, Terri, alive.

On the day of the conference, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer heard another challenge to his 2000 decision to allow the feeding tube's removal. Seminole attorney David Gibbs III, a conference speaker who represents Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, argues Terri didn't have adequate legal representation during the initial trial that decided her fate.

The program sponsors recruited four key participants in this nationally known right-to-die case as panel participants. Besides Felos and Gibbs, panelists included Wilkes & McHugh PA attorney Ken Conner, who represented Bush in the fight to defend Terri's law, and Jay Wolfson, a Tampa attorney and University of South Florida professor who serves as Terri's special guardian ad litem.

Each spoke about the larger implications of this lengthy legal battle than just the Schindlers' personal fight to keep their daughter alive against the wishes of their son-in-law. The couple has long argued that Schiavo deserves no standing in any decision about Terri because of his common law marriage to another woman.

The legal fight coincides with a national shift in societal values, Felos says. Greer's 2000 ruling came as conservative and pro-life forces gained control of the Congress and the presidency. He argues this political atmosphere spawned a groundswell of advocates who claim "God's will" as a mantra to challenge right-to-die issues.

"This case has had a huge detrimental effect," Felos says.

On the other hand, Connor says the larger societal issue is whether the courts have a monopoly on protecting the weak and innocent. Just as Gibbs, Connor argues that it is unconscionable to subject Terri to a judicial order without proper legal representation.

After all, Connor says, the Florida courts require proper legal representation in criminal proceedings. He wonders why Terri doesn't qualify for independent counsel while mass murderers such as Ted Bundy do.

Why not create another layer of protection for those unable to speak for themselves? Connor says.

"Finality is not the objective; accuracy is," he says. "If you err erroneously, the error is not correctable."