FOR TERRI SCHIAVO, DUE PROCESS DENIED

WELL SAID, MR. GAYNOR..................

FOR TERRI SCHIAVO, DUE PROCESS DENIED
By Michael J. Gaynor
MichNews.com
Mar 15, 2005

Due process is "a course of formal proceedings (as legal proceedings) carried out regularly and in accordance with established rules and principles."

The Bill of Rights was enacted to protect the people from abuse by government officials.

Including judges.
The Fifth Amendment mandates that "[n]o person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."

A disabled person whose spouse wants to starve her to death with judicial approval and then inherit from her is...a person.

With a God-given and unalienable right to life and a constitutional right to due process.

The Fourteenth Amendment mandates that "[n]o State shall...deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Terri Schiavo is a person.

Florida is a State.

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that if an accused is in custody, he or she must be personally present at every stage of a trial where his or her substantive rights may be affected by the proceedings against him or her.

When Michael Schiavo went to court for permission to starve Terri Schiavo to death, did Judge Greer assure that Terri was personally present at every stage where her substantive rights may have been affected by the proceedings against him or her?

No.

At any stage?

No.

Did he ever visit Terri?

No.

Can the law in the United States really be that an innocent person for whom the spouse proposes to starvation to death has LESS right to due process than a person accused on the worst conceivable crimes?

Or has Terri Schiavo been deprived of due process?

Judge Greer says Terri has been treated fairly.

In Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, Mr. Bumble crudely, but compellingly, dismissed such nonsense:

"If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, "the law is a ass — a idiot." Mr. Bumble was, understandably, very upset when he made this statement.

He had been accused of stealing jewelry.

After making sure that his wife had left the room, he had said: "It was all Mrs. Bumble."

And been advised by a lawyer: "that is no excuse."

Because:

"'You were present on the occasion…and, indeed, you are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction."

To which Mr. Bumble had replied:

"'If the law supposes that, the law is a ass — a idiot. If that's the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience."

The Sixth Amendment guarantees an accused the right "to have the Assistance of Counsel for his [or her] defence." Is a disabled person to be put to death entitled to less? Is a disabled person to be put to death at the instance of her spouse to be legally represented by that spouse in the proceeding brought for that purpose?

Even when that spouse will inherit from the disabled person? Even when that spouse already is living with another by whom he has had a couple of children? Is that faithless spouse really a suitable champion of the interests of the disabled person?

Or is there a conflict of interest so flagrant as to be obvious?

How asinine and idiotic has the law become?

------Email: GaynorMike@aol.com