Who has the right to decide who lives and dies? Apparently, America’s courts feel fit to take on the conundrum.
This week, the United States Supreme Court vacated a stay that blocked the execution of serial killer Michael Ross. This effectively removes the obstacles between the convicted killer and his own date with death.
Michael Ross, by his own acknowledgment, killed eight women in Connecticut and New York, and had been scheduled to die by lethal injection the previous Wednesday. Because of the ongoing legal battle, the Department of Corrections postponed the execution twice. It is now scheduled for January 29, 2005.
The reason this country's highest court was asked to consider this particular case is because Ross wants to die. You read that right.
Michael Ross recently dismissed his defense attorney and accepted his fate, stating he was ready to die. However, a District Court Judge, Robert Chatigny, imposed a stay of Ross's execution so that his mental competency could be determined — a necessary protection of Ross's rights. The case made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court and they dutifully agreed to hear it.
The outcome, however, was not to the liking of those seeking to protect Ross's life.
Public Defender Gerard Smyth told the press: “We are certainly disappointed the Supreme Court has decided Mr. Ross can be put to death without a thorough investigation of his mental capacity.”
Robert Nave with Amnesty International also seemed disappointed with the decision. He openly puzzled: “We don't understand why the court would refuse to give adequate time to look at Michael Ross's competency in a full and fair manner.”
I can understand his disenchantment.
Though the Supreme Court did not produce the answer that Ross's advocates were seeking, they did consider the case. In that same week, the Court was also to decide whether or not to hear the case of Schiavo v. Bush. This was the case that pitted Florida's Governor, Jeb Bush, against the husband of an incapacitated Florida woman, Terri Schiavo. “Terri's Law” was the law that enabled Bush to protect Ms. Schiavo from having a gastric feeding tube removed — an action that would cause her death by dehydration and starvation over the course of many days.
Ms. Schiavo is a brain-injured woman whose right to live or die has been the subject of a years-long and fiery court battle. Her estranged husband has sought to remove her assisted feeding and hydration so that she dies. Her parents have asked the courts for permission to act as her guardians and provide her the necessary care so that she may live. Her true medical condition and wishes are matters of great dispute and mystery.
The circuit court (specifically, Judge George Greer) found that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state even though evidence established her condition to be that of a responsive and aware person. The court also found that Terri would not want to live incapacitated even though the only supporting evidence offered was hearsay testimony of alleged casual remarks.
In October 2003, Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed by court order. While hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the hospice where this was happening, more than 180,000 others signed a petition to Governor Jeb Bush to take action. Petitioners cited the failure of the courts to enforce Florida’s guardianship laws that protect vulnerable people like Terri Schiavo and the fact that Terri Schiavo did not meet the state's statutory definition of Persistent Vegetative State — a prerequisite for this type of action.
After she went nearly a week without food and water, Florida lawmakers passed House Bill 35-E into law and Ms. Schiavo's enteral nourishment was resumed.
This immediately sparked legal action by her husband, Michael Schiavo. Schiavo sued Governor Bush over the constitutionality of Terri’s Law, stating that it encroached upon his wife's right to privacy and that it was a violation of the separation of powers doctrine.
Governor Bush and his counsel, Attorney Kenneth Connor, asked the courts for discovery, jury trial and the ability to take depositions and testimony. They were not only denied those fundamental rights, they were handed a summary judgment by circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird that ruled Terri’s Law to be unconstitutional. Judge Baird issued this ruling without hearing the first word of testimony or reviewing the first piece of evidence.
In the United States, laws are considered constitutional unless proven otherwise. Since the burden of proof would rightly be on Mr. Schiavo and, since the governor was denied the opportunity to present his case, the actions of the circuit court seem hasty and appreciably contrary to law. The matter passed through the court of appeals and on to Florida’s Supreme Court. Ultimately, the Florida Supreme Court sided with Mr. Schiavo and determined that Terri's Law was unconstitutional.
The governor took his case to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that both he and Terri Schiavo were denied federally protected due process rights. The US Supreme Court receives hundreds of petitions every year and accepts consideration of a very small fraction of them. The case of Schiavo v. Bush was not to be one of those cases.
The United States Supreme Court rejected the case without so much as an opinion, thus ending any hope of Governor Bush protecting the life of one of Florida's vulnerable citizens. For the moment, Terri Schiavo's life goes on, but the stays protecting her are prone to evaporate just as Terri's Law has.
Compare, if you will, Michael Ross and Terri Schiavo:
• One is an admitted and convicted serial killer. The other is an innocent and vulnerable person.
• One has chosen to accept his punishment and is willing to face death. The other cannot speak for herself and cannot make her choices clearly known.
• One has been given the ultimate protection of law. The other has been abandoned by the system.
• One is still considered a living, breathing human being who is entitled to equal protection. The other has been long discarded by the courts.
In the United States, we afford even the most diabolical of criminals due process and evenhandedness because we are a civilized and just society. Anything less would be tyranny. Why is it, then, that we deny the same protections to those of us who have become disabled or dependent?
When I hear of cases like these, I cannot help but wonder if the real criminals are the ones in the black robes. It is long past time for our lawmakers to enact measures that will protect vulnerable Americans and it is long past time for our courts to remember who the innocents are.
Pamela Hennessy is a marketing and media executive in Florida and has served as a volunteer for the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation since November of 2002.
This article courtesy of Citizens United Resisting Euthanasia, America's oldest network solely devoted to combating euthanasia.
