Lawyers to Jeb Bush: You Have the Power to Save Terri Schiavo

Terri Schiavo's crime? Being an inconvenient woman. Her sentence? Death. The method of execution? Slow, agonizing starvation and dehydration.

But Florida Gov. Jeb Bush can give her a reprieve, activists say.

Responding to his question about whether he has the authority to help save Mrs. Schiavo, now in the second day of being starved to death by court order, four top attorneys say he has all the legal authority he needs to intercede.

Not only does he have the power, wrote Troy Titus, a Chesapeake, Va., attorney, but also he "has a constitutional duty to prevent any action taken pursuant to [Judge George Greer's order] because such action would violate Ms. Schindler-Schiavo’s constitutionally guaranteed "inalienable right to enjoy and defend life" regardless of her "physical disability," as secured by Article I, Section 2 of Florida's constitution.

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas Moore Law Center, echoed Titus. Moreover, Thompson, who has more than two decades of experience in law enforcement, was joined by former federal prosecutors Edward White and Robert Muise in advising the governor that he has "sufficient evidence" to "conduct a formal criminal investigation" into the Schiavo case.

Coral Gables, Fla., lawyer John B. Thompson told the governor "you have the power, by the mere stroke of a pen, to prohibit what is, in every sense, the execution of Terri Schiavo by a means that is both cruel and unusual in violation of Article I, Section 17 of the Florida Constitution and the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution."

Finally, lawyer Brian Fahling wrote: "The brief filed by the Governor in the Middle District of Florida sets forth significant reasons to believe that Section 782.02 is being violated because Terri’s right to life is violated by the state when the state, acting as her guardian, assumes that her wish to live without artificial sustenance is the same as a wish not to be fed at all. The state has an ‘unqualified’ interest in life."

Moreover, Terri is being denied oral sustenance, which creates "an unnecessary conflict with Florida Statutory law by implying that physicians may cooperate with a person’s alleged express wish not to feed herself. ..." A denial of Terri’s right to life under these circumstances, it appears, results in a violation of Section 782.08. All the documents can be accessed at www.terrisfight.org.

"Legal experts from around the country agree that Governor Bush has the authority to save Terri Schindler-Schiavo's life. We know he has the power, the question is: Does he have the political will?" said Randall Terry, president of the Society for Truth and Justice.

Gov. Bush said Wednesday that he was instructing his legal staff to find a way to block the court order allowing Mrs. Schiavo to be starved.

Mrs. Schiavo's parents and other supporters continued to hold a vigil today outside Woodside Hospice, 6774 102nd Avenue N., Pinellas Park, Fla.

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