Not that anyone will notice this post because of the weird GC technical issue going on but oh well.
DCF seeks delay to study claims of woman's abuse
Mike Thomas says Terri Schiavo deserves better
Feb 24, 2005
By John Kennedy | Tallahassee Bureau
Posted February 24, 2005
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...home-headlines
CLEARWATER -- A judge Wednesday barred the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube for 48 more hours while, in a surprise move, the state's social-welfare agency asked for an indefinite delay to investigate potential abuse of the severely brain-damaged woman.
Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer's decision to bar Michael Schiavo from removing his wife's feeding tube until at least 5 p.m. Friday was unrelated to a request by the state Department of Children & Families to intervene in the closely watched right-to-die case.
In fact, Greer refused to hear DCF's lawyer or consider her motion, saying it was not properly placed on his court calendar. Rather, he said, he needed more time to decide whether Bob and Mary Schindler should be allowed to pursue more legal and medical options to prove their daughter is not in a vegetative state and could recover.
But DCF's sudden entry in the case emboldened the Schindlers, who have been embroiled in a seven-year legal battle against their son-in-law over their daughter's care and end-of-life wishes.
"We are really elated. Forty-eight hours to us right now seems like six years," Bob Schindler said. "We've been complaining and complaining and complaining that Terri has been abused, but it's fallen on deaf ears."
But George Felos, an attorney for Michael Schiavo, said DCF's sudden interest in the case "reeked of political arm-twisting" by politicians in Tallahassee who ran out of options after Terri's Law was struck down as unconstitutional. Enacted in October 2003, the law empowered the governor to order Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted six days after it was removed by court order.
During the past six years, Felos said, the department has investigated "scores" of anonymous calls to its abuse hotline alleging abuse against Terri Schiavo, but not one of them has ever been substantiated.
"Lo and behold, all of a sudden, after six years DCF radically changes its position and decides that there is a need to intervene," Felos said. "Anyone can see what clearly is happening. The governor and the Legislature -- the politicians -- have tried to do an end run around the court system. They did it in October 2003, and that's what they're trying to do now."
For days now, anti-abortion activist Randall Terry, who is coordinating protest efforts for the Schindlers, has been urging Gov. Jeb Bush to declare Schiavo a ward of the state and have DCF take over her guardianship.
Earlier Wednesday, Bush told reporters he was exploring options to block the removal of the tube but added that there was only so much he could do. "I will do whatever I can within the laws of our state to protect this woman's life," he said.
Later in the day, Jacob DiPietre, a spokesman for Bush, would not say what the governor knew about DCF's investigation, or whether he asked the agency to intervene.
He also said DCF has an obligation to "protect children and vulnerable adults and to respond to allegations of abuse or neglect."
"If there is an investigation, the only way it can be started is by a call to the [DCF] hotline," DiPietre said.
Exactly what DCF is investigating was unclear Wednesday. Kelly McKibben, general counsel for the agency's District 7 headquartered in Orlando, asked the judge to seal DCF's motion. A clerk in the probate division said the judge said he would review the motion to see whether it was required by law to be filed confidentially.
For years, the Schindlers have repeatedly suggested that their son-in-law strangled their daughter the night she collapsed 15 years ago this Friday. That's why, they have asserted, she lost consciousness and suffered the irreversible brain damage that has left her in what doctors say is a persistent vegetative state.
That's also why, they've said, Michael Schiavo won't provide the treatment that would allow her to recover. He doesn't want her as a witness against him.
More recently, the Schindlers have blasted their daughter's care at the Pinellas Park hospice where she has lived for five years. On Tuesday, one of their spiritual advisers, Brother Paul O'Donnell, listed a litany of their complaints: At the hospice, he said, Terri Schiavo is kept in isolation and is denied music, visitors, cards, flowers, fresh air, and even lotions and dental care.
With the exception of the limits on visitors, Felos called the charges "lies and deceptions" aimed at "demonizing and slandering" his client. He also noted they've been reviewed and rejected by the courts who have labeled his client a devoted and loving husband.
And at least one allegation of abuse came from Michael Schiavo. In 2004, he banned all visitors from the hospice after an aide found what appeared to be needle marks on her arms after the Schindlers visited March 29. Police investigated and found no evidence of foul play.
But neither DCF nor any abuse allegations were the subject of Wednesday's hearing. That centered exclusively on the Schindlers' request for an indefinite delay in the removal of their daughter's feeding tube. Their attorney, David Gibbs, argued the stay was necessary to enable the Schindlers to appeal the last two courts ruling against them.
He also said they should have a chance to submit their daughter to tests to determine whether she is, indeed, able to communicate, as her parents have long contended. He cited a recent neurological study from Cornell University that showed that minimally conscious people have far more brain activity than previously thought.
"Suppose we are wrong?" he told Greer. "At the end of the day, all we did was make sure."
Felos, however, said the studies are irrelevant to Terri Schiavo, because they deal with people who have some activity in their cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, and Terri Schiavo's cerebral cortex is all but gone. He urged the judge to put an end to what he called the Schindlers' "abuse of the court system."
"What we are seeing is the continued and apparently never-ending effort to defeat Mrs. Schiavo's rights," he said.
As the lawyers argued in court, Bush and Florida lawmakers were flooded with thousands of e-mails and phone calls from individuals and groups urging they take some action to keep Schiavo alive.
Towson Fraser, a spokesman for House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, said his office had received at least 10,000 e-mails and more than 300 phone calls by Wednesday afternoon.
Many were like that sent by Kelley O'Neal of Connersville, Ind.
"I am fed up with courts acting like dictators and tyrants," O'Neal wrote. "Please, you must take action now -- do whatever it takes to save Terri Schindler-Schiavo from being starved to death."
Legislation filed earlier by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, and Sen. Steve Wise, R-Jacksonville, would prohibit a court from ordering a feeding tube removed from an incompetent person, unless the individual had prepared a document allowing such action.
The Republican-controlled Legislature is scheduled to begin its two-month regular session March 8.
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