Text 11164, 34 rader
Skriven 2005-04-08 18:17:10 av EARL CROASMUN (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av VERN HUMPHREY
Ärende: Re: Bo Gritz
====================
-> EC>-> I would first make sure that her statement indicated a clear desire to
-> EC>-> die by dehydration.  I would review that in the light of laws related
to
-> EC>-> suicide -- because this was active, not passive killing.

-> EC>If you would want to call it "suicide" then you would ignore her intent
-> EC>regardless of the number of witnesses or the presence of any written
-> EC>directive.

-> You keep saying it was her intent.  I don't see any real evidence of
-> that.

If you consider it an intent to commit "suicide," and thus illegitimate
in any event, it doesn't matter what the evidence was.

If you mean that you were not at the hearing five years ago and thus
didn't hear the evidence first-hand, none of us were there.  And,
although it was transcribed, and supposedly Florida is an "open records"
state, I haven't found transcripts of any testimony other than Father
Murphy's.  But I've seen the summaries of it, including the summary by
the one reporter who was actually there to hear it.  The judge (a
conservative Republican evangelical Southern Baptist) found the evidence
"clear and convincing" -- the highest level of civil evidence
requirement.  A string of judges reviewed the evidence and said they
would have ruled the same way.  Even Pearse, the court-appointed
guardian ad litem for Terri's rights, the one who had recommended in
December 1998 that the judge NOT remove the tube, CHANGED his mind after
the hearing in 2000 and agreed with the judge that it was her wish!
And, as I pointed out earlier, there are a lot of people in prison
convicted of crimes on less evidence than the three witnesses who
testified to having heard repeated oral declarations.

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