Due Process, Not Facts Faced the Federal Court

ByABC News
March 23, 2005, 5:11 PM

March 24, 2005 — -- Following the emotionally-charged legal proceedings in the Terri Schiavo case has been difficult at best.

In the more than seven years that the case has been winding through the Florida state and federal court systems, at least ten judges have looked at the factual and legal issues in the case. Now, with Terri's feeding tube removed on order from a state court judge and federal courts refusing to intervene, the case has come down to very narrow legal points.

The courts' refusal to reconsider the factual issues in the case has been criticized by Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and their supporters.

"[I]n extraordinary circumstances like this it is wise to always err on the side of life," President Bush said Monday in Arizona. "The legal issues, I grant everyone, are complicated. But the moral ones are not," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said over the weekend.

After Tuesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge James Whittemore to deny the Schindler's emergency injunctive relief because they had not established a "substantial likelihood of success" at trial on the merits of their arguments, Terri's brother Bobby Schindler lamented to ABC News' "Good Morning America" that "I'd love for these judges to sit in a room and see this happening as well."

However, experts say that judges sitting in a room with Terri is not relevant to the issue before the courts. The question is not about what Terri wanted anymore, nor what Michael Schiavo wants, what the Schindlers want, what Congress wants, or what the President of the United States wants -- the courts this week are deciding whether or not Terri's case has received due process under the law.

When the Schindlers appealed to the federal courts this week, to prevail they needed to prove that they had "a substantial likelihood of success on the merits." In order to prove that, they sought to prove that Terri had not received her "due process" under the law as is guaranteed in the Constitution.