FEDERAL BILL COULD SAVE TERRI SCHINDLER-SCHIAVO, OTHERS, FROM STARVATION AND DEHYDRATION.

Despite seemingly final defeat in the Florida courts, the Schindler family could be given another chance to save their daughter, Terri Schindler-Schiavo, from starvation and dehydration through federal court action under a bill announced March 3 by Representative Dave Weldon, M.D. (R-FL).

On February 25, Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge George Greer set 1 p.m. March 18 as the final date and time for removal of her feeding tube, stating his intention to grant no further stays. (See story on page 20 for more details.) Barring increasingly improbable intervention by higher courts, it appears the only chance of avoiding her starvation lies in legislative action by the Florida legislature, Congress, or both.

The Weldon bill, in cases like Terri's, would authorize what is known as a writ of habeas corpus to allow a federal district court to conduct a thorough review of state court decisions and proceedings in the light of the federal Constitution and laws. The Schindlers maintain that their daughter's due process and equal protection rights have been violated in multiple ways, from failure to provide her counsel before effectively condemning her to death, to denying her equal access to rehabilitative techniques and medicine.

Habeas corpus is a procedure to protect liberty that dates back to before the Magna Carta. Literally translated, the Latin words mean, "You have the body" and were the first terms of a writ served upon King's officers or others who had someone in custody, requiring that the detained person be brought before a judge and that the custodian demonstrate lawful cause to continue to retain the person. It was a highly valued way of protecting against arbitrary arrest.

With the rest of traditional English law, it came over to the American colonies, and was so treasured that when the U.S. Constitution was adopted, it contained a provision limiting its suspension to extreme circumstances such as war or rebellion.

Although grounded in tradition, the writ has been given statutory content since the Habeas Corpus Statute of 1679. After the United States came into being its use and precise availability has been regulated by Congress.

Over time, for example, it has become the principal means by which those convicted in a state court have obtained federal court scrutiny over claims their rights under the federal Constitution and laws were violated. While theoretically these claims may be raised by seeking to appeal directly from the state's highest court to the U.S. Supreme Court, because of its workload the Supreme Court in fact takes a very meager few of such cases. Consequently, ...