Text 11296, 61 rader
Skriven 2005-04-10 16:31:24 av EARL CROASMUN (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av ED CONNELL
Ärende: Re: Bo Gritz
====================
->  EC> In the matter of the hearing on Terri Schiavo's wishes, as best I can
->  EC> tell from the stories on it, there was no hearsay evidence.  No one
->  EC> passed on any second-hand testimony of her intent (such as someone
->  EC> saying "I never met her, but a friend of mine said that she heard Terri
->  EC> once say ____").

-> Nah, you are distancing it to double hear-say.  A report on a report of her 
-> words.

No.  Let me try stating it a different way.  Each witness at the
hearing, as best I can tell from the summaries I have read, testified as
a direct witness to an event.  That event happened to be an oral
declaration, but the fact remains that they were each first-person
eyewitnesses.  If the event had been her signing a living will or
signing a contract, and they had been witnesses to her act of signing,
that too would not have been hearsay.  Different example: if someone
bicycles up to a Bush motorcade and shouts out a threat on his life,
that is illegal.  Every person who hears that shouted threat is a
witness to a relevant event.  Every one of them can testify in court.
They would probably not be allowed to testify about anything the guy
said the day BEFORE (planning the action) or the day AFTER (bragging
about the action).  There is a huge difference between being an
eyewitness to an event (an oral declaration, a written contract, a
stabbing, or whatever) and being a witness to what someone SAID about an
event.

->  EC>  Her oral declaration, like the hypothetical murder by OJ, WAS
->  EC> the matter in question.

-> No.  Her current wish should be the matter in question.

How would one ascertain those wishes after Feb. 1990, OTHER than by
looking at what she said repeatedly when she was capable of having and
expressing wishes?


->  EC>  But the objection you are outlining would apply to any living will,
->  EC> including written ones.

-> True.  At least a written will is done on purpose with the intent that it 
-> will speak for you at some subsequent date.  If one changes one's mind, one 
-> can modify the words on the paper too and one knows where and what to 
-> change.  Her comments to these third parties were considered binding by her,

-> do you think?

If there had been a single witness who had testified that she had
changed her mind or that she had expressed contradictory views on other
occasions, that would have drastically influenced the outcome.

A few weeks ago I mentioned a poll that was cited by the Supreme Court
in the Cruzan ruling.  Something like 15 or 17 percent of those surveyed
had put their preferences into a written living will.  Another 56
percent or so had left oral preferences that they passed along to
relatives and friends.  It would be profoundly wrong to ignore the
wishes of that 56 percent, just because they hadn't written it down.  It
would be even more wrong to ignore ALL those wishes because maybe their
wishes somehow changed AFTER they entered a persistent vegetative state.

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