They were lousy lawyers. Instead of presenting the de novo case, they dredged up all the old stuff against Greer's decisions. And, the federal judge pointed that out.
Like another Freeper already said, I wish all the legal scholars out there doing the second guessing had helped the Schindlers when they really needed them.
The Schindler's didn't ask. Even Jay Sekulow, renowned federal court plaintiffs' attorney, was reduced to giving advice on television. Nobody in the Schindler camp asked him to participate.
Having said that, we will never know, because yes the lawyering was weak, and too little too late (per the amended complaint which at that point would have exposed Whittemore as having endangered Terri's life based on a poor pleading, and thus that maybe generated a bias against reversing his ruling), and I would assume based on the poor pleadings, had equally poor briefs.
The sad thing is I suspect, is that the right to life movement in this context, simply does not have access to the best and brightest federal constitutional lawyers. They simply don't have Olson and the Federalist Society types on speed dial. And of course it needed to be on speed dial; there was so little time. Indeed, the whole thing really needed to be prewritten by the right brains in anticipation. Just another guess.
As usual stinkspur, you feel most comfortable when siding with the forces of darkness.
There were dissenting Federal appellate judges who sided with the Schindler attorney and strongly condemned the majority Judges for ignoring important legal facts the Schindler attornies provided for them.
One Federal appellate Judge from the 11th Circuit also said his fellow judges were overtly ignoring the will of the Congress in rejecting their emergency legislation calling for an FULL appeals hearing, and to keep Terri Schiavo alive in the meantime.
So no matter how you slice it, enough evidence and points of law were provided to satisfy at least some appellate Judges. But it's impossible to mollify the lusts of the death cult.