Court hears Schiavo case

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida's highest court on Tuesday scrutinized Gov. Jeb Bush's effort to keep a brain-damaged woman alive against her husband's wishes, sharply questioning how a special law that the Legislature passed to prolong her life did not violate the separation of powers that the state's constitution assures.

In brief arguments before the state Supreme Court, lawyers for Bush, who has said his only interest in the case was protecting the sanctity of life, said that being governor gave him the right and responsibility to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, 40, who lives in a nursing home in Clearwater.

A trial judge ruled in May that the law violated Schiavo's privacy rights and the separation of powers between the three branches of government. But Bush appealed, and the case was sent directly to the Supreme Court.

Lawyers for both the governor and Michael Schiavo, who is his wife's guardian, have said they might appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if they are unhappy with the outcome.

Mr. Schiavo's anger toward Bush bubbled over after the proceedings, when he broke a long public silence to ask why the governor, a Republican, had not shown up in court.

"If this was so important to the governor, where is he?" Mr. Schiavo said. He then made a pointed reference to Bush's daughter Noelle, who was arrested in 2002 for trying to buy pharmacy drugs with a forged prescription, and then caught with crack cocaine at her drug rehabilitation center. At the time, Bush begged the public to respect his daughter's privacy.

"I can remember you sitting here in front of every one of these reporters with tears in your eyes when your daughter had problems," Mr. Schiavo said, addressing Bush, "and you asked for privacy and you got it. Why aren't you giving me my privacy? And Terri her privacy?"

Terri Schiavo was 26 when her heart temporarily stopped beating one night in 1990, possibly due to an eating disorder, wiping out much of her brain function. Doctors have said she is in a persistent vegetative state, meaning her eyes are open and might widen, stare or follow objects, but her brain is incapable of emotion, memory or thought. She breathes on her own but depends on a gastric tube for sustenance.

Schiavo left no written directive, but lower courts have accepted testimony from her husband, Michael, and several of his relatives that she told them she would not want to be kept alive artificially. In 1998, a few years after Michael Schiavo won $1 million in a malpractice suit, he sought court permission to remove his wife's feeding tube. (His lawyer has said most of the money was spent on medical care for Schiavo and legal fees.)