Meanwhile, as soon as Bobby told him of Greer’s decision, Dave Pritchard, a teacher friend of Bobby’s at Tampa Catholic, insisted we get a Web site going. He came up with Terrisfight.org, which it remains today. The site was used to get news of Terri’s situation to anyone interested, and as it turned out, a lot of people were. The media did a story on the site; people began to e-mail us with support and questions.
Another teacher, Frannie Siracusa, helped organize a celebrity charity basketball game at the high school to raise money for the appeal. The media publicized this as well. Star athletes from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Vinny Testaverde of the New York Jets, and famous basketball and hockey players agreed to attend. I had no idea how many people would show up, let alone contribute, but to my surprise, there must have been six to eight hundred in the stands, a show of support that touched me profoundly. The support only escalated in the following years.
On March 24, 2000, Judge Greer imposed guidelines on the times we could visit Terri and insisted we draw up a “visitation guest list” for Michael’s approval; authorized Michael to hire a security guard for Terri and one for himself; and granted Michael the right to pay these security costs out of Terri’s medical fund.
Michael’s excuse for needing the guards was that he’d observed some of Bobby’s students praying for Terri’s life outside the Palm Gardens nursing home. He described them as an “unruly mob” and said his and Terri’s lives were in jeopardy. But Bobby’s kids were well behaved, and they were just praying. They were as “dangerous” as pet kittens.
It seems that Greer was as aggravated as Michael that we had “dared” question his decision, and he gave us twenty minutes to come up with a list of people we would want to visit Terri.
“We couldn’t think of anyone to put on the list,” Suzanne remembers, “so we wrote down anybody and everybody we could think of—family, friends, who knows, just in case—so Terri would have visitors. And supporters.”
One name was an inspiration of Bobby’s: Frank Pavone. Unknown to Michael, Felos, or Judge Greer, Frank Pavone was a priest. Bobby had never met him, but he had heard him on television the night before, been impressed by his outspoken statements on pro-life issues, and figured he might, someday, come to our aid. Michael looked at our list and removed some names, but Frank Pavone, submitted without his priestly title, was not one of them. If he’d known the part Father Pavone would play later, his would have been one of the first names Michael crossed out.
On March 24, Judge Greer did issue a stay of the removal of the tube, to be in effect until all appellate remedies had been exhausted. Michael could sue to have this decision reversed, the judge said, but for whatever reason, Michael chose not to—at least not then.
He made a different move.
In early April, without consulting us or our attorney, Michael transferred Terri from the Palm Gardens nursing home to Woodside Hospice, a facility of the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, in the city of Pinellas Park, just north of St. Petersburg. Again, this was supposedly for Terri’s “protection.” Michael needed a court order to have her transferred, and he got one without our knowledge. Who was chairman of the board of the hospice? George Felos.3
As soon as we found out about the transfer, Pam Campbell filed a motion with Judge Greer to have Terri transferred back to Palm Gardens. Since Terri had already moved, Greer said, the motion was irrelevant. Motion denied.
To me, putting Terri in a hospice was like putting her in jail. Michael was the jailer, Felos the warden. I could bang on the door, and they could let me in or not. I could scream for information, but they could ignore it. It was as though four hands were strangling me. Even as Terri continued to regress from lack of therapy and stimulation, evident in her clenched hands and by longer periods when it was difficult for her to respond, I felt she was being pushed further and further away. I imagined her crying out for her mother, and I was powerless to help her.
Bob and Bobby went to the hospice to speak to its administrator, Pat Sargent. They wanted to make sure Terri was getting the best care possible.
“We had one of the most heated arguments ever,” Bobby reported.4 “We were very worried about Terri’s safety and welfare because we knew she was now under Michael’s complete control, and we could do nothing because of Felos’s position on the board. We asked Pat Sargent if she’d let us know if Terri got sick. She stonewalled us. Well, then, we asked, what would she do if Terri got an infection? Her answer: nothing.
“The argument started in the hall and continued into her office. She had to see we were very upset. Yes, she was in her legal right, but didn’t she understand the human aspects? Eventually we backed off and calmed down, but I think I was almost as scared of my rage as Pat Sargent was. Even the hospice chaplain refused to help us. We turned to Joe Magri—and to the media.
“By this time, I was starting to have a little rapport with some of the reporters, and someone at Channel 28 put me on the air that night. I said, ‘Hey, my sister’s at a hospice now, and the hospice told me today that if Terri gets an infection, they won’t tell my family and they’ll let her die.’
“They had Felos on, too. ‘That’s hogwash,’ he said. ‘We’d never let her die.’”
Magri and Felos reached a compromise, though it wasn’t easy. In early May, Michael verbally committed to the court words to the effect that Terri would get medical treatment at Woodside, thereby canceling a court hearing Magri had applied for.
Michael later reneged on the commitment. The following month, however, he signed a document worked out by Felos and Magri that stated the hospice would not terminate or withdraw Terri’s treatment without prior notice to the court, and would treat Terri for five days if she got an infection. It meant that we would have a few days to fight if Terri got sick.
It’s a testament to my state of mind that such small “victories”—things it seemed to me that any humane person could never dispute—gave me comfort.
Meanwhile, Magri, reflecting our concern that Michael and Felos were acting in concert to kill Terri, worked on the appeal of Greer’s ruling removing the feeding tube. In early July, he filed with the appellate court to reverse the decision. His brief argued that the probate court had misapplied Florida law because it used an incorrect standard of proof; that Terri had a constitutional right to have all the evidence reviewed by a neutral arbiter; that Terri’s First Amendment rights were violated; and that Terri’s estate had been violated by wasting her money on legal fees.
Felos didn’t file an “answer brief” with the appellate court until late August. It argued that Judge Greer’s ruling was correct and pleaded that Terri be allowed to die “naturally.” I thought, How can any sane human being consider starvation and dehydration “natural”?
An oral hearing was scheduled for November 8. A three-member panel consisting of Judges Jerry Parker, Chris Altenbernd, and John Blue would preside at the appellate court in Lakeland.
Thus, some ten months after we had our emotional lives turned into chaos by Judge Greer, we would have to go through the same suspense, the same anxiety, the same uncertainty, all over again. With no guarantee that anything would be different at the end.
Bobby’s description of his life during those months applied to us all:
“The case was starting to build some publicity, at least locally. More and more people were learning about it, more and more people became outraged. We were getting phone calls every day. People were contacting the Web site, e-mailing us. Glenn Beck, who at that time had a local radio show, was talking more about the case. Every day our family would call each other—a dozen, two dozen times—saying, ‘Hey, is anything going on?’ ‘Have you heard from any . . . ?’ ‘Did we get any . . .’ ‘Did Mr. Magri hear anything?’ ‘Any good news from the lawyers?’ Because I think each of us still had the sense that truth would prevail. Something was going to happen to stop this.
“Even when we were together on weekends or during the week, as much as we were trying
to make things feel normal, ultimately all we could talk about was the case. Even during Christmas, even when we tried to talk about things, it always came back to the case. It obsessed our lives.”
CHAPTER 10
Appeals
Bobby spoke to a friend of his who had worked with the appellate court for several years. He knew Judges Parker, Blue, and Altenbernd—particularly Altenbernd. The news wasn’t good: Altenbernd was a liberal judge. He didn’t think we had a chance.
“I was very concerned,” Bobby says. “I conveyed what he had told me to my father, and we were all terribly worried. I felt we were blessed with Joseph Magri. When we first went to see him, his paralegals told us he had never lost a case. Besides, I thought his appellate brief was very strong, and so did friends of mine with lots more knowledge than I had.”
I thought Magri made a brilliant case for us. But would a strong brief be enough? Bobby hadn’t told me what he’d heard about Judge Altenbernd. He knew it would have made me nearly desperate with anxiety.
The oral hearing, it seemed to me, was our last chance. If the three judges turned down our appeal, Terri would die. It was this thought that made it so difficult for me to see her. Every time I entered her room, she would react. If I told her a joke or sang her a song, she would respond with a smile or a laugh. It was obvious to me—to all of us—that the noises she made, the movements toward us, her palpable joy in seeing us, were not involuntary reactions. And yet here were three men who had never seen her, never held her, never interacted with her, who would decide on our word or Michael’s depending on the quality of our testimony.
Remember: Terri had been neglected since 1991—that’s ten years! There was nothing in her files that indicated she was receiving proper therapy or rehabilitation.
Now, if you put a healthy person in bed for ten years and isolate them, they’re going to deteriorate. Terri, in fact, was doing better than we might have expected. Warehoused, stimulated only when we were there, shown love or interest only from us, with us she was almost as reactive as she’d always been. I knew it was strength. I thought of it as courage. And I loved her all the more.
The appellate court’s job was simply to rule on whether Judge Greer had followed the law. Magri could bring up some of the mistakes Greer had made, argue that he had followed the wrong law or depended on the wrong testimony—indeed, these he had covered in his brief. But the judges were only there to say, yes, he had followed the law, or no, he had not.
The format of the hearings was that each lawyer had fifteen minutes to testify, but the judges could interrupt at any time. The courtroom was small. I was struck by the fact that our side of the room was filled with about fifty supporters, while Michael’s had only a few, including his father.
I felt good about the hearing. I was confident in Magri and excited that a person of his stature would go into that room to fight for us. But once the hearing started, I was the only optimistic member of my family.
Here’s Bobby’s take:
“I went to the appellate hearing, and my worst fears about Judge Altenbernd came true, because almost from the minute it started, he was all over Mr. Magri. His demeanor and his questions showed me where he stood on the issues, and I felt that Mr. Magri was on the defensive from the beginning, that he didn’t have a chance to make his case. Altenbernd and I share the same gym in Tampa, and weeks later I saw him in the locker room, and I thought, This scrawny little guy just decided my sister’s fate.”
Suzanne felt the same way Bobby did. “I was nervous to begin with,” she says. “But once I started hearing Judge Altenbernd talk and the way he was treating Joe Magri and just the questions he was asking, I thought he was very negative. I felt then that the whole oral argument was negative. I mean, it was not a positive experience at all, and I couldn’t say a word. None of us could. Altenbernd was really ruling the hearing. He hardly asked Felos any questions, and he made Magri defend himself with dozens of them.”
And here’s Bob:
“If I hadn’t heard about Altenbernd from Bobby, I’d have thought we’d have a slam dunk, a no-brainer. Hearing about him, I was a little bit concerned, but not as concerned as I should have been. When I went into the actual hearing and I saw the way Altenbernd handled it, I thought, This is done. It’s over. I knew immediately we were going to lose.”
By the end of the hearing, I shared their mood. When we asked him for his impressions after the hearing ended, Magri, though still saying he was confident, admitted we had a problem.
Our last chance, it seemed, had failed.
On January 24, 2001, the Second District Court of Appeals ruled in favor of removing Terri’s feeding tube. It felt as though the judges had taken up my battered heart and squeezed the life out of it.
The thing that galled me the most was that the judges described Michael as a loving, caring person who was trying to provide the best care for his wife. “It was like trying to make sense out of something that doesn’t make sense,” Bob recalled. “And your brain feels like it’s going to explode.”
I was at work the day the ruling came down. Bob called with the news and asked if I wanted him to come over. I was too numb to want support. “I’ll be okay,” I told him, knowing I wouldn’t. “You call Bobby and Suzanne. They’re a mess.”
None of us were surprised by the ruling. “The first ruling with Greer,” Bob says, “that one blew me away. I thought it was dishonest. The second one, I could tell the way Altenbernd handled it that he was going to rule against us. Then I was really worried. In talking with Magri before the ruling came in, I asked what our safety nets were. He said that of course we’d appeal the decision if it went against us, if necessary to the Florida Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. But he also said it was unlikely we’d get relief.
“And I knew personally I was preparing myself for what was coming. I was getting mentally conditioned for it, where I wasn’t when Greer gave his ruling. At this juncture, I was preparing for it and trying to brace for the storm that was coming, because I knew it was going to happen.”
I, too, braced myself. If the ruling goes against us, I vowed, we’d try and try and try again—whatever it took—to help Terri. But I had no idea what to do.
Desperation drove us forward. Bob stayed on the phones continuously, trying to win support for Terri from anyone who’d listen. He kept saying that something underhanded was going on, that at the very least we were seeing an old-boy network in operation.
We were boosted by an amazing call.
“Mr. Schindler?” a voice with a pronounced Texas drawl asked.
“Speaking.”
“This is Ross Perot. I heard about your troubles, and I just want you to know that if you find a doctor to oversee Terri’s rehabilitation, I’d like to help.”
We were deeply moved. If so important a man knew about Terri, we figured, some of the publicity we were trying to generate had worked. And if he cared, others must care as well. We had been feeling lost, alone, defenseless against the power of the courts. Now a powerful voice spoke for our side.
Bob also got calls from police officers and retired sheriffs who told him we had obviously run into a heartless judge, but it was hardly much solace. Doctors and therapists called, offering their services for free. An organization involved with helping brain-injured individuals sent us letters from patients like Terri who had been misdiagnosed with PVS, evidence they felt we could use in our appeals.
Beginning in February and on through March 2001, the pace of court hearings became dizzying:
• Joe Magri files a motion for a rehearing by the appellate court, this time with all the appellate judges present. Denied.
• George Felos files to reverse Judge Greer’s ruling prohibiting the removal of Terri’s feeding tube until the entire appeal process is settled.
• Magri counterfiles, asking the appellate court for a thirty-day stay of the removal. Granted. Greer orders the tube removed once the appellate court’s stay is ov
er. Magri files with the appellate court for an extension of the stay until an appeal before the Florida Supreme Court is heard. He is told to file with the supreme court, and that no stay beyond that filing date would be granted.
The prevailing trend was easy to see: Terri’s chances were growing dim. The day of her death could not be far away.
Suzanne asked her divorce lawyer, Jane Grossman,1 to recommend someone to take on perjury charges against Michael, a case Magri said he was ill equipped to handle. “Well,” Jane replied, “there’s this high-profile attorney who’s got a great reputation. Her name’s Pat Anderson.” Bob and Bobby went to see her.
“We spent several hours just talking to her and her partner, Jim Eckert,” Bob remembers. “They immediately recognized what was going on. Eckert jumped to his feet. ‘This means war!’ he shouted, pounding on the table. ‘It’s outrageous. Let’s go get ’em.’”
On April 12, 2001, Pat filed in the circuit court to disqualify Judge Greer from Terri’s case due to discrepancies in the trial. Four days later, Greer denied the motion. (How Greer could decide on his own competence mystified me then and baffles me now.) On April 18, the Florida Supreme Court refused to hear Terri’s case and refused to extend Terri’s stay beyond 1:00 p.m. on April 20. Anderson immediately filed a petition asking the federal court to intervene, arguing that Terri’s civil rights were being violated.
On April 20, the federal court conducted a morning hearing. “I thought Pat did well,” Bobby told us after it had ended. “The judge—he was an old-time judge—had a good reputation. My impression was that he didn’t want to go anywhere near the case. Like he didn’t want to have anything to do with it and was trying to find some way out. And he found a way.”
That afternoon, the judge ruled that Terri’s case was a matter for the country’s highest court and extended Terri’s stay to 5:00 p.m. on April 23, 2001, so we could lodge an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court itself.
I get confused writing about these hearings and counterhearings, even with my notes in front of me and in the calm of retrospect. Imagine trying to keep up with the frantic pace of events when I was so frantic myself I could barely eat, sleep, or think. For the most part, Magri’s and Anderson’s maneuvers were beyond me, and I took no comfort in their words of reassurance: “This time we have a good chance.” I felt I was being tossed like a giant beach ball from stranger’s hand to stranger’s hand, helpless over where I landed. I remember little detail about those days, only the sense of floating from hour to hour without strength, without control, without comprehension.
A Life That Matters Page 9