The Norm Pattis Style

Norm Pattis, a permanent guest-poster at Crime & Federalism, has weighed in on Judge Whitmore's decision in the Terri Schiavo case: "Hero in a Black Robe."

United States District Judge James Whitmore of Florida will today feel the scorn of millions. He did what judges are supposed to do last night. He applied the rule of law in a tough case.

Terri Schiavo's feeding tube will not be reattached.

Norm's short post is worth reading for its conclusion alone. Meanwhile, the Terri Schiavo case moves along. At 2 a.m. this morning, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Judge Whitmore in a 2-1 ruling.

Comments

[dark industrial music]

I wish tha case would resolve already.

[Mike]

On behalf of Norm (who is still new to blogging), thanks for the link. Oh, and he's recently been promoted to official co-blogger.

[Al Nye]

As I indicate on my blog, it's high time that the parents take into account what Terri Schiavo wants done in this case.

Al Nye

[notanamecaller]

Amazing. Whittemore had the case for all of 12 hours, no one knew he was going to get it, yet Hannity on his show says that Whittemore was both "too lazy" to review the record and simply a 'stupid' judge.

A caller suggested the judge was a Nazi.

One radio host with -- he says- 8 million listeners a week concluded that the entire judicial system in FL was corrupt.

That the 11th circuit was bought and paid for by the ACLU.

Sickening.

[Evelyn Jones]

Judge Whitmore,
You and Judge Greer are lower than scum. Why don't you go on a 7 day fast with no food, water, or juice and see how painless it is? Micheal has gone on with his life living with a woman has children, but he still wants to murder Terri and you are helping him. In any other case that would be an accomplice to murder. If a Mother leaves her child on the door steps to a home and you find the mother of the child you put her in jail for abandonment, yet you are killing a child that has parents that want her. This is insane.

[jon]

*sigh* I am pretty tired of people in this debate throwing around the term "Nazi". It accomplishes nothing. No one, on either side of this debate, is anywhere close to deserving that label. To those whom would call Judge Whitmore a "Nazi" let me refer you to some sober thoughts by one William F. Buckley (of the last clear thinking conservatives on the Schiavo case), whom says, among other things, the following:

Was the court system in Florida, then, acquiescing in death by pain for Mrs. Schiavo? A doctor consulted by one television analyst brushed aside the question, in language not readily transcribed by a layman. He seemed to be saying that Mrs. Schiavo would not suffer pain as the term is commonly understood.

But that question was not directly accosted by the judge, who said only that Terri's rights had not been abrogated. It was unseemly for critics to compare her end with that of victims of the Nazi regime. There was never a more industrious inquiry, than in the Schiavo case, into the matter of rights formal and inchoate. It is simply wrong, whatever is felt about the eventual abandonment of her by her husband, to use the killing language. She was kept alive for fifteen years, underwent a hundred medical ministrations, all of them in service of an abstraction, which was that she wanted to stay alive. There are laws against force-feeding, and no one will know whether, if she had had the means to convey her will in the matter, she too would have said, Enough.

I've blogged on Buckley's article here.