Governor to close Schiavo inquiry [State attorney to Jeb: Michael S did not cause wife's collapse.]

St Petersburg Times ^ | July 8, 2005 | DAVID KARP and CHRIS TISCHDAVID KARP and CHRIS TISCH

[summer]

LARGO - In what could be a final chapter in the legal saga of Terri Schiavo, Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe says he could find no evidence that Michael Schiavo caused his wife's collapse 15 years ago.

In a June 30 letter to Gov. Jeb Bush, McCabe suggested ending the state's inquiry into the case.

Bush responded Thursday in a two-sentence letter to McCabe: "Based on your conclusions, I will follow your recommendation that the inquiry by the state be closed."

Bush asked McCabe last month to investigate Schiavo's collapse on the morning of Feb. 25, 1990. He cited questions left unanswered by an autopsy and inconsistent statements from Michael Schiavo about the time he found his wife on the floor of their apartment.

McCabe appointed two of his most seasoned prosecutors to review the evidence. They found nothing to indicate Michael Schiavo hurt his wife....

[bvw]

Good point. Be bold.

[summer]

Just plain scared of y'all.

LOL...thank you for your candid comment here. I appreciate it.

In the past three threads I have recently posted, there has been one poster on each who just wanted nothing to do with the actual topic of the thread, but nevertheless, posted continuously! Disturbing the discussion for everyone else. Very rude and thoughtless, in my opinion. Not appropriate for FR.

But there are always other posters who see what is going on and then makes a very good point in an honest post - like you did. Thanks, again, Graymatter.

[Graymatter]

Be bold.

Yes ma'am!


PS: Michael Schiavo caused Terri's death, maybe in 1990, but for sure in 2005.

[summer]

Minimal standards of care for a dependent must be met in any situation

I don't really follow your line of thinking in your post, but I would say some families provide the MAXIMUM standard of care when one family member is terminally ill, and just wants to die at home, peacefully, and makes that clear in writing. I don't think that is murder. I think that is love. You can not force such a person to go travel for experimental treatments and endure more pain. The theory behind hospice care understands and endorses that. I do, too.

[bvw]

"Sir" that is. I don't think I've called anyone a liar, but that bracketed part of the headline is a misrepresentation, iow, a lie.

Still, no ones a liar for that, even if made deliberately. Why? Because -- as summer has said -- that's how he read the story and how he felt it could be summarized in the limits. His mistake is in interpretation, yet the headline is still a lie.

[bvw]

For death who doesn't want the most peaceful way, at home, among loved ones? A few who don't want the loved ones to bear the experience quite so directly, but most as you say.

And love alone has few ethics or morality. At least what the low-grade warm fuzzy comfort love you seem to espouse. For example, Jimmy Cagney's bad guy in White Heat had a whole lot of that love for his ma.

[summer]

At least what the low-grade warm fuzzy comfort love you seem to espouse.

"low-grade" ????-- I think it is the ultimate difficult task to care for, and watch, someone you love die, It is heartbreaking, And, it is clear to me you have no idea what I am talking about, otherwise you would never use a word such as "low-grade" -- talk about misrepresentations!!!!

Try buying an issue of one of several new magazines for caregivers and find out what agony people are going through in these painful and sad circumstances. Your comment is an insult, and an extremely thoughtless one at that. Good night.

[Graymatter]

Sorry about that. Others often get my gender wrong too. (I don't mind so much when they assume I'm a man, but sometimes they pick up on the feminine clues and then insinuate I'm gay!)

[Gondring]

For this reason shall a man leave his parents and cleave only to his wife. [...]
I would not want the bond between my husband and myself broken by a parent, even if I believed my husband was making a bad, even a sinful, decision. [...]
Just my view from the peanut gallery.

Not just your view, but also the view of many others...it's the conservative and Christian view.

[summer]

Actually, I think annalex, in post #72, had the "Christian, conservative" view:

I agree that a law that allows for divorce initiated on behalf of a spouse who is not able to communicate and suffered adutery, abandonment or abuse, is a good idea.

Because Annalex recognizes that a marriage based on abuse or adultery or abandonment is really not a marriage. No Christian I know would advocate abuse or adultery or abandonment in a marriage.

[Gondring]

What if a written legal directive of a spouse appoints parents as the legal guardian -- and not the spouse?

Once again we delve into the murky waters that illustrate why mixing religious "marriage" with the civil "marriage" is not a good thing.

What kind of religious "marriage" would not make the spouse legal guardian? Perhaps not Christian...

What is a civil "marriage," if it does not make the spouse the legal guardian?

[Gondring]

I fail to see how "living will" is an oxymoron. It is an indication of your will while you are living and unable to express it directly.

It should be honored.

[tutstar]

Well I 'm admittedly not feeling well and honestly not able to concentrate on this a lot.

What would you have put for the title since the whole thing wouldn't fit?

[Gondring]

(though Fuhrman points out there is generally, by all accounts a missing 40 minutes).

I have not read Fuhrman's book, so perhaps you can enlighten me. Is it really "by all accounts" or is it just from looking at the testimony of Mr. Schiavo, who woke in the middle of the night to find his wife in bad shape? I know I can rarely remember what time I wake in the middle of the night!

And doesn't the medical evidence say that if Mrs. Schiavo had actually lain there for those 40 minutes, she'd have been fully dead? It's tough to be in cardiac arrest for 40 minutes and survive, so it seems like Mr. Schiavo just estimated times and got some wrong.

I'm no fan of his, and perhaps he's guilty, but I don't think the timing is the problem. Even the body position questions are not that compelling.

[summer]

What if the spouse prefers the parents instead of the spouse because the parents and spouse have differing views about end of life issues? What if the spouse is a person who believes it is best to pull the plug immediately, while the parents believe otherwise? Who would you want to have legal authority over you while you were incapacitated, if your views about end of life issues were in conflict with your spouse?

Yes, your spouse should respect your views, but what if your spouse doesn't really want to be your devoted caregiver for 15, 20 or 25 years while you're incapacitated? But your parents do?

This is something like what happened in the case of Terri S, although we don't know what HER position was in this matter since she left nothing in writing. But, clearly, her parents and her spouse had very different views on what they each believed she would have wanted.

[Gondring]

How Terri had gotten in her state is just as irrelevant as what precisely that state was medically.

True. When it was decided legally what Mrs. Schiavo would have wanted, it didn't rely on Mr. Schiavo's testimony alone. In fact, Judge Greer stated that the court would NOT decide just based on his claims.

Of course, that opens up the question of...why not?

[Earthdweller]

Living wills are useless in a lot of cases. That is what people are not being told.

Why Not Sign a Living Will Instead of the Will to Live? From the National Right to Life

Many people who simply do not want what they see as a lot of medical technology prolonging the last few hours or days of their lives when they are terminally ill sign living wills. If you do, in many states you may not know what you're really signing.

Webster's Dictionary defines "terminal" as "of or in the final stages of a fatal disease." And this is what the ordinary person thinks: that somebody who is "terminally ill" is someone who will inevitably die, whose death cannot be prevented by medical treatment.

But in many states, that is not what it means. Instead, for the purposes of the living will you are legally in a "terminal condition" even if your life could be saved--so as to live indefinitely--by medical treatment, so long as you would still have a permanent disability of some kind.

If you sign a legal document you ought to be able to expect that the words in it mean what they are generally understood to mean. If you sign a contract selling your "car" you should not later discover that a legislative act has defined "car" to include "house" and that you're now homeless. But that is exactly what the laws in many states have done with the wording of their living wills.

Another example: Many people who would not want what they consider the extremes of medical technology would be horrified at the idea of being starved to death. But the laws of most states define the medical treatment that is refused by their living wills to include food and water. While a few states at least have a "check-off" so you can choose whether or not to be starved, in the majority you have no indication in the living will you sign that you are agreeing to starvation.

One widely used "Living Will Declaration," states, "If I should be in an incurable or irreversible mental or physical condition with no reasonable expectation of recovery, I direct my attending physician to withhold or withdraw treatment that merely prolongs my dying." This is broad indeed.

If you walk with a limp that can't be corrected, you have an "irreversible ... physical condition." If you have grown forgetful, with some irretrievable memory loss, you may well have an "incurable ... mental condition." If either of these happens to you, and--having signed the "Living Will Declaration"--you become unable to speak for yourself, that means you will be deprived of all medical treatment and food and water (possibly including what you could be spoon fed) except pain medication and treatment to keep you "comfortable." Any irreversible disability qualifies as a basis for death.

The term "merely prolongs my dying" may sound as though it limits this, but it really doesn't. No time frame is given, and the truth is that we are all "dying." Literally every life-saving medical treatment "prolongs dying," in the legal sense.

The bottom line is this: if you are someone who doesn't want medical technology to prolong your last hours, but who also doesn't want to be starved or allowed to die just because you have a disability, your wishes will be far more likely to be respected if you sign a properly prepared Will to Live than if you sign a living will.

Terri Schiavo Before dehydration

God Bless you Terri. May justice one day be served for you

Let everyone who said your beautiful smile was fake be haunted by it for the rest of their days.

[summer]

[A living will] is an indication of your will while you are living and unable to express it directly.

It should be honored.

I agree.

[summer]

That was very interesting. Thanks for posting.

[summer]

Re your post #93 - Oh, don't worry about it. I'm not. :)