[robertpaulsen]

I suppose you have a better way to resolve the case? Care to share with the class?

Or do you restrict yourself to simply poking fun at other's attempts to resolve the issue?

[supercat]

I suppose you have a better way to resolve the case? Care to share with the class?

Well, for starters, I would suggest that oral statements should generally not be "clear and compelling" in the absense of anything to authenticate them (such as a videotape, etc.) It is trivial for an unscrupulous person to attribute to people things they never said. There may be a few cases where an oral statement could constitute clear and compelling evidence, but only if all of the following apply:

1. The statement is heard by enough independent people who would have no motive to invent it, that a conspiracy to invent would be implausible.
2. There is consensus about what was said and what was meant, the statements were clearly intended to serve as a living directive, and the claimed meaning is plausible.
3. There is a logical reason why the person making the statement was unable to personally put it into tangible form.
4. The statement is disclosed to people who can officially record it as quickly as practical.

An example of a case where purely oral statements might constitute clear and compelling evidence would be a train wreck, where an injured passenger tells others of his wishes prior to losing conciousness. In such a case, if the other passengers were to report what the passenger said as quickly as practical to officials, I would say such statements could be regarded as 'clear and compelling' evidence:

1. Unless the other passengers conspired to cause the crash, they would seem an unlikely group to conspire to invent a story.
2. There would be little confusion about the person's statements or the purpose thereof.
3. The person's decision to give the statement orally rather than writing or recordig it would be clear and logical given exigent circumstances.
4. The witnessess to the statement would be able to report it in timely fashion.

As you can see, I wouldn't outlaw all non-recorded oral statements, but I would only allow them in places where there would be no reason to doubt them. Let's see how Terri's "wishes" stack up:

1. Her wishes were heard by an openly-adulterous husband, his brother, and his sister-in-law. One of them had a very clear and obvious conflict of interest, and conspiracy by the others is highly plausible.
2. The three people witnesses Terri's claim that Terri spoke to each of them at a different time; there is thus zero corroboration. There is no particular reason to believe Terri's statements--if she made them--were meant to be enforceable as a living will. At the time Terri's statements were made, hydration by any means was not considered life support and therefore a claim that she intended them to justify the removal of same would seem implausible.
3. There is no logical reason why, if Terri wanted her supposed wishes carried out, she could not have written them down.
4. The statements were not recalled until seven years after Terri's 'collapse'--long after they were supposedly made.

Do you think my criteria for accepting oral statements are too rigid? Terri's siblings' hearsay testimony fails all of them.