And the reason the 11th Court went on to apparently reverse its, previous to the April 22nd raid, stance might have something to do with him no longer have any lawyers to represent him. His only representation came from the Justice Department. And I doubt they made any motions or did any lawyering to keep him in the US.

Elian’s case must be a thorn in most liberals side since it put on the front pages of the papers that people were dieing to leave Castro’s socialist paradise. And they were deciding to risk death, not to go to Mexico, nor to South America, but to the USA.

Nice SELECTIVE time line you have there. For some strange reason you left out the most important date. On April 20th the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals (the last court hearing before the April 22nd raid) turned down the INS’s request to have Elian ordered into INS custody. That day the court said the Justice Department was probably wrong about its interpretation of the law and its own regulations. Then went on to say that Elian’s case had significant merit and that Elian “although a young child, has expressed a wish that he not be returned to Cuba.” It then went on to state that Elian’s case was a custody dispute, not something handled by federal courts.

And what kind of crack are you smoking that there was no search warrant? You need a healthy dose of MSM cause you’re out of your mind if you want to challenge me on this fact. Why don’t you google “Elian reno search warrant” and see if anything changes your warrant-challenged mind. You might even read about how Reno didn’t approach Michael Moore, the judge in the case, but waited until he went home and then got a search warrant from a magistrate, utterly pissing off the 11th Circuit. The wording of the warrant is blatant lies claiming Elian was hidden and illegally restrained and an illegal alien (even though he had been granted a year’s parole).

And if this was all legit, why the hosing down of non-violent protesters not interfering with the raid with pepper spray? Why the assault of reporters and cameramen in the house? Why was it a midnight raid instead of an afternoon knock at the door?
So you’d best read up on the facts some place besides Indiemedia before bullshit on someone else.

But back on point, I don’t see how the US Congress did the same thing. The law they passed was only a procedural remedy to get the case to a federal court. Hardly the purposeful misinterpretation that the 11th Court seemed to be accusing Reno of.

“Not political grandstanding fodder” is probably more precise.

The differences in meaning between the ordinary usage and the specialized usage is evident in this case, where the disputants did take their case to a state court, and where it is a judge’s decision, in his capacity as judge, published by said court, that is being criticized and questioned.

Excuse me? Of course it’s a private matter. That doesn’t mean it isn’t subject to law. Conversely, being subject to law doesn’t make something a public matter. Private doesn’t mean “secret” or “outside the law.” By that standard, any contract between two parties would be public.

I know what you mean about the parents, honestly I didn’t know they’d said that, or they would have objected to their daughter’s wishes even if she’s made a written testament. That’s rather shocking. But I already knew about how they basically allowed political organisations to exploit the case in the first place and how they turned against Terri’s husband, allowing him to be depicted as some kind of greedy murderous monster…

I don’t think any of that is right, there are many things that turned quite ugly in this story. But I also tend to think even those ugly consequences started on a good faith belief on the family’s part, or an instinct if you like, or a stubborness to let go and accept reality and accept they cannot control her daughter’s life or death (because ironically, seems to me it’s them wanting to do that, not the husband…).

What I meant by understanding their point of view is simply, I can understand how they cling on to every little illusory sign of her responding to their presence. I can understand how they refuse to acknowledge she will never recover. I think it’s misguided, especially after such a long time, I think it’s such a shame Terri has been reduced to an object of contention in the first place, but it’s all so very sad, and in that sense, I do sympathise with them too, not just with her husband, who I think has acted in a more dignified manner. But she is also their daughter and sister, her family are obviously suffering for her as much as her husband is. I believe that pain has been exploited in cynical ways by political groups, and they are of course also responsible for that—but on the other hand I don’t think they really intended to deprive their daughter of her dignity and privacy like that, I mean, I don’t think they realise that. They too must be genuinely convinced they’re doing the best for her… I don’t know, I can’t really know of course. I just cannot attribute a perverse intention to them, even if the results of the whole thing are ultimately so perverse—as often happens in family litigation, and in such public displays of personal grief that get so much media attention. There’s so much wrong with it.

At the very least, if litigation could not be avoided, it should have all remained a private dispute with no media or political involvement. That I cannot sympathise with, but still, I think the Schindlers too are ultimately victims to the vultures.

Yes, there can be a lot of cultural differences in family traditions and family ties and parents to adult children relations, though I don’t think they’re as dramatic as you picture them, or with one model necessarily better than the other (I’m Italian, and I believe for the sake of balance we could do with a bit more of the Northern European mindset about children’s independence from parents…).

But that has nothing to do with the legal principle of spousal rights even in decisions like this, which is the same, as far as I know, pretty much everywhere.

I’m definitely 100% sure it is the same thing in Italy, since you mentioned it. An example from my own family. In the 70’s, my uncle on my father’s side had a very bad accident at work, on a construction site, heavy machinery hit him right on the head and partially crushed his skull, he miraculously made it to the hospital still alive, even if completely unconscious, he was operated immediately, I think he briefly regained consciousness, can’t remember if after or before the operation, but then he slipped in a coma straight away.

After a week, the doctors pulled the plug and donated his organs.

Who made the decision to authorise them to do so? His wife, my aunt, the woman he’d married. All by herself.

There was no objection from my grandmother (the only parent my uncle had, my grandad had died a few years before), there was no objection from my father, his only sibling. No one ever thought he could ever recover, it was more than brain damage, he had materially lost parts of his brain in the accident, it was coma and not vegetative state, it all appeared much more clear-cut in a way than in the Schiavo case.

But, even if technology wasn’t that advanced as today, he was already being kept alive exclusively by machines. If my aunt hadn’t authorised the doctors to stop all artificial life support, god knows how long he could have remained in that state, maybe for months or even years.

No one even gave that a thought, it was inconceivable. By the way, they were all practicing Catholics, very religious people. There was just no discussion of these matters at the time, no religious or political debate on this, and no confusion with euthanasia which wasn’t even being discussed that much at all. I think my grandma wasn’t too keen on the organ donation part, which was still seen with some prejudice (and superstition) at the time especially by people of her generation, but even if she’d wanted to oppose that, there was no legal way she could have done it.

Also, my aunt got a settlement from the construction company which she sued and which was found guilty of disregarding every possible safety measure on the site (badly operated and badly attached machinery; no precautions; no one was even wearing a helmet…). She got a lot of money and rightly so. It was hers, as the spouse. My grandma never thought of asking her for a part of it. Yet it was her son too, not just my aunt’s husband. But that’s the law, the settlement was supposed to be compensation for the spouse only. They were all in amicable relations, there was no disagreement, and the question of my grandma wanting a part of that money never even arose.

There are thousands of cases of people in a coma or vegetative state having the “plug pulled” every day. This one is only different in that it involves a high profile and highly politicised battle with parents vs. spouse. But the debate is not over which party has more rights as a general legal principle, it’s on the specific position taken by these specific parents vs. the specific position taken by this specific spouse.

The spouse’s has been acknowledged by the courts as the only position with legal authority, and most of all as the only one representing his wife’s position. Now I’m not a legal expert, but I imagine they’d have had to do the very same even if the positions were swapped, with the spouse wanting life support to continue because the wife had told him so, and the parents wanting it to stop because they don’t believe it’s right. As long as they ascertained the spouse was carrying out the wife’s wishes, as they did, they would have had to rule “in his favour” (in her favour) whatever those wishes were.

You can’t change an entire legal system based on who looks more worthy of your sympathy in a litigation case.

And indeed, what if it had been the other way round, if it was the husband who wanted to keep her attached to machines, and the parents who wanted to let her go and claimed that was what she would have wished herself – would you still have a problem with spousal rights taking precedence over parental rights?

You see, it is a separate issue. Supporting the Schindler’s position is one thing, wanting parents to have legal precedence over spouses is quite another thing, that would require you to object not to the court rulings on this specific case, but to those legal rights given to spouses, which are essential part of the legal definition of marriage.

Spousal rights also entail things like inheritance. If a person dies, and they’re married with kids, then it’s the spouse and children who get inheritance. Only if there are no heirs and no designated beneficiaries, the property goes to the parents if they’re still alive. I think that’s pretty much the same across the world.

Think of the gay marriage debate, it’s precisely about the demand to recognise gay unions so that gay partners too can be given all those legal rights that spouses currently have, including inheritance, and including being entrusted with critical decisions about medical care in case the partner is incapacitated.

If you want those rights to be taken away even from unions that are so far formally recognised as marriage, then the legal institution of marriage itself would become just a formal but pointless certification. It’s quite a paradoxical position, honestly, I don’t really understand it.

Jet, I appreciate the fact that you did answer my question. But you’re wrong on the facts. here’s the timeline, as I understand it:

In January, Florida Family Court Judge Rosa Rodriguez issued an order that Elian should remain with the Miami relatives, pending a further court ruling on whetehr he should be returned to his father in Cuba. At the same time, the relatives filed a federal lawsuit to get permanent custody of Elian, and Republcians in Congress introduced elgislation to make him an American citizen.

In March, U.S. District Judge Michael Moore dismissed the Miami relatives’ lawsuit and ruled that the INS had authority to return Elian to his father.

On April 19, a federal appeals court issued an injunction against Elian leaving the United States. This ruling did not address the custody question.

Following this descions—and of coruse extensive neogtiations between the various aprties—came the notorious April 22 raid. THe important thing to realzie about this was that the purpose was not to return Elian to Cuba as Jet suggests, but to return him to his father, who all U.S. law, upheld by every U.S. court that had ruled on the question, said should have custody. Elian was then reunited with his father in the United States while the courts considered the question of whether he could be returned to Cuba.

On June 1st, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta agreed with the INS that Elian was not entitled to a political asylum hearing. On the 23rd, the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a petition for a rehearing of its own decision not to grant Elian an asylum hearing. The Miami relatives appealed this decision to the Surpreme Court.

On Wednesday, June 28th, 2000, the Supreme Court announced that it would not block Elian’s return to Cuba or rehear any of the Miami family arguments. Only at that point—more than two months after the raid—did Elian and his father return to Cuba.

What do we take from this?

First, that the two cases are analogous in taht in both, Democrats upheld the rule of law while Republicans took eevry means available to get their preferred outcome. Second, that the Clinton administration did not overrule a state court, did not remove Elian from the Miami relatives while a court decision on the amtter was still pending, and did not return Elian to Cuba until opponents ahd every possible legal opportunity to block the move. Third, that contrary to Jet’s claim, no US law was broken or circumvented in the Elian case.