Court rebuffs Congress in Schiavo case
on Mar 18, 2005 at 11:28 pm
The Supreme Court late Friday night rebuffed the efforts of leaders of Congress to take control of a right-to-die case in Florida state courts. The Justices refused, for the second time in two days, to get drawn into the controversy over withdrawal of a feeding tube for a brain-damaged woman, Theresa Marie Schiavo. At 11:05 p.m., the Court denied a request for a preliminary injunction by a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, seeking to require continued sustenance for the woman. Earlier in the day, a feeding tube was withdrawn under a state judge’s order.
The application was by the House Committee on Government Reform (docket 04A811), but it was part of maneuvering by leaders of the House and Senate to countermand the state judge’s ruling that the woman would prefer to die rather than remain in a persistent vegetative state.
The move in the Supreme Court was filed within hours after the Florida Supreme Court refused to intervene. The state’s highest court rejected an “emergency all-writs petition” by the House committee earlier in the day, concluding: “The petition to invoke all writs jurisdiction is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because there is no independent basis alleged to invoke the jurisdiction of this Court.” The state Supreme Court also turned aside a request for a stay of the judge’s withdrawal order, finding that request to be moot.
In refusing to block the state judge’s order, the Supreme Court acted in a simple order, with no opinion or explanation. The committee’s request had gone to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who handles emergency matters from Florida and other states in the Eleventh Circuit. He passed it on to the full Court, which denied the application.
The House committee has subpoenaed Mrs. Schiavo, her husband, and staff members of a Pinellas Park, Fla., hospice where she is a patient, summoning them to appear at a hearing of the committee at the hospice next Friday, March 25.
Mrs. Schiavo has been found by state courts to be in a persistent vegetative state and unable to respond to stimuli, but leaders of the House — and, separately, the Senate — included her in subpoenas in order to bring her under the protection of a federal law against interfering with witnesses called before Congress. The House subpoena to her tells Mrs. Schiavo to appear for the March 25 hearing, and thanks her “for your participation in this important hearing.”
The cover letters for that subpoena and others say that the House panel “has initiated an inquiry into the long term care of incapacitated adults, an issue of growing importance to the federal government and federal healthcare policy. The hearing will review the treatment options provided to incapacitatated patients…”
Besides the House appeal to the Supreme Court, the Florida woman’s parents have filed a habeas petition in U.S. District Court in Tampa. That petition seeks, among other things, a jury trial “to determine Terri’s present physical and mental condition.” Presumably, that proceeding could lead to another appeal to the Supreme Court by the woman’s parents. On Thursday, the Supreme Court refused to issue a stay of the nutrition-withdrawal order. Mrs. Schiavo’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, had filed an emergency application for a stay (docket 04A801).
