TAMPA, Florida, February 13, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Florida’s 2nd District Court of Appeal has ruled today in favour of Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The appeal was filed in response to a lower court’s decision to disallow Gov. Bush and Terri Schindler-Schiavo’s parents the right to intervene in the constitutional challenge to a law passed by the Florida Legislature last October in order to keep Terri alive.
The Appeal court ruled that, in denying Gov. Bush and Terri’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, the ability to intervene on their daughter’s behalf, “Pinellas Circuit Court Judge W. Douglas Baird did not follow judicial rules.” In November, Governor Bush filed papers in a case defending ‘Terri’s Law’ from a suit claiming the law is unconstitutional. The suit was launched by Michael Schiavo, the husband of the severely disabled Florida woman whose feeding tube was removed for nearly seven days before the Florida legislature passed the law permitting Bush to order the reinsertion of the feeding tube. Gov. Bush’s lawyer, Ken Connor, in the appeal filed last year, also asked for a replacement judge, arguing that Judge Baird issued statements seeming to indicate he was biased against Governor Bush. “The court has, in the short time that this case has been pending, made it clear that the governor cannot be afforded a fair and impartial forum,” said the Governor’s filing. Read prior LifeSiteNews.com coverage of the Appeal at: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/nov/03112005.html