"Florida Court Rejects Law Keeping Comatose Woman Alive" is the headline to this story posted by the NY Times. Some quotes:
Fourteen years after Theresa Schiavo slipped into a vegetative state, Florida's highest court said today that Gov. Jeb Bush violated the constitutional tenet of separation of powers when he signed a law to keep Ms. Schiavo alive against her husband's wishes.Here is the AP report published by the Washington Post, including links to the opinion in Bush v. Schiavo, and other documents.The high court said that a law passed by the Legislature in October 2003, referred to as "Terri's Law," granted the governor unconstitutional power to overturn several court decisions that granted Michael Schiavo the authority to make a final decision on his wife's fate. * * *
In the end, the justices went on, "this case is not about the aspirations that loving parents have for their children."
"This case is about maintaining the integrity of a constitutional system of government with three independent and co-equal branches, none of which can either encroach upon the powers of another branch or improperly delegate its own responsibilities," they wrote. * * *
"If the Legislature with the assent of the governor can do what was attempted here, the judicial branch would be subordinated to the final directive of the other branches," the court wrote. "Vested rights could be stripped away based on popular clamor."
[Update 9/24/04] The Washington Post reports today:
MIAMI, Sept. 23 -- Florida's highest court ruled unanimously Thursday that Gov. Jeb Bush (R) violated a "cornerstone of American democracy" when he overrode a court decision and ordered doctors to resume tube-feeding a severely brain-damaged woman.Posted by Marcia Oddi at September 23, 2004 04:30 PMChief Justice Barbara J. Pariente of the Florida Supreme Court called Bush's actions in the case of Terri Schiavo "an encroachment on the judicial branch" that undercut the constitutionally protected separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. * * *
Pariente wrote that allowing Bush's executive order to stand would mean that "no court judgment could ever be considered truly final and no constitutional right truly secure."
"Vested rights could be stripped away based on popular clamor," the opinion said. "The essential core of what the Founding Fathers sought to change from their experience with English rule would be lost."
"Our hearts" comprehend the pain of Schiavo's family, Pariente wrote. "But our hearts are not the law."