Text 10959, 75 rader
Skriven 2005-04-03 03:26:36 av EARL CROASMUN (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av VERN HUMPHREY
Ärende: Re: Bo Gritz
====================
-> Did it give rise to any action on her part, such as making out a living
-> will?  It did not.
. . .


-> That it WAS, and did not result in her taking any action to make it
-> formal, and in writing.
. . .


-> Yes.  She took no formal action as a result of that conversation.  And
-> did not make her wishes generally known.
. . .


-> Don't get upset -- just explain why if it WASN'T a casual conversation,
-> it didn't result in a formal, written declaration.

You felt the court should ignore her wishes because they were expressed
in "casual conversations."  Now, when you find out that many of the
conversations were in fact quite personal and emotional (deaths of a
grandmother, a grandfather, and a friend's baby) and not at all what
would be called "casual," you choose to define "casual" in a strange
way.  Any time someone says something out loud but then does not write
it on paper, THAT makes it "casual?"

-> Imagine some day in the future someone testifies that you said, "when I
-> go, I want you to have my house and all my savings."

-> Would that be considered adequate as a will?

In what state?  There are some state laws that accept oral declarations
that will personal property, although they usualy limit it to deathbed
declarations or oral declarations by active military.  There are also
provisions for oral declaration of organ donation.  And there are
various other instances where an oral statement has force, such as oral
contracts.

More to the point, the state of Florida accepts both written and oral
declarations in matters of refusing medical care.  You thought the judge
should dismiss as "flimsy" evidence three witnesses who testified to a
whole series of oral declarations, because they were all "casual"
conversations.  By your novel definition of "casual," though, you really
are criticizing the judge because he didn't ignore all oral declarations
and insist on written declarations.  That would require him to ignore
the law.

It would also require a lot of unjust decisions.  There is an
interesting footnote in the Supreme Court's written opinions in the
Cruzan case.  A 1988 poll found that only fifteen percent of those
surveyed had filled out a living will, while another fifty-six percent
had orally informed family members of their wishes.  Schiavo was within
that fifty-six percent group.  That's a lot of people whose
constitutional rights would be violated if judges started ignoring the
law by ignoring all oral declarations as being too "casual" to accept.

There are various other inequities in ignoring her type of oral
declaration.  The written document winds up in a box in the attic.  It
gets destroyed in a house fire that also hospitalizes the person who
wrote it.  The witnesses or the signature cannot be verified.  It meets
the requirements of the state where it was drawn up, but the patient
moved.  And so on.

But, purely hypothetically, let's say that a properly drafted living
will had turned up in January of 2000, with what appeared to be Terri's
signature on it, expressing exactly what she expressed orally.  Would
that cause you to reverse your present position?  It would meet your
definition of non-casual and non-flimsy evidence.  If she had a written
declaration that matched the oral declaration, would you agree that the
judge should rule the way he did?  Would you agree that the feeding tube
SHOULD have been removed?


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