Schindlers request new trial in Terri Schiavo case based on judge's error

Mar 3, 2005 / 22:00 pm

The attorney for Terri Schindler Schiavo's parents has filed a new motion, alleging that Judge George W. Greer’s decision in February 2000, authorizing Terri’s death, was “erroneously influenced” by a mistake in fact. 

The motion asks Judge Greer to correct his mistake by either reversing his 2000 order or conducting a new trial.

The motion points out that Judge Greer made a clear mistake by discounting the testimony of Terri's friend, Diane Meyer, said attorney David Gibbs, who filed the motion in Pinellas Country Probate Court March 2.

Meyer testified that, in 1982, Terri told her she did not agree with the decision by Karen Ann Quinlan's parents to take their daughter off life support.

Judge Greer finally concluded that this conversation could not have occurred in 1982. He concluded that Terri's statements to her friend did not indicate end-of-life wishes made as an adult, because Terri would only have been 11 or 12 years old in 1976, the year he believed Karen Ann Quinlan had died.

However, Karen Ann Quinlan did not die until 1985, some nine years after her court case ended and her respirator was removed. Apparently, none of the attorneys working on Terri’s case in 2000 noticed this mistake in dates.

“No one told Judge Greer that Karen Ann Quinlan was alive in 1982, making it entirely appropriate for Diane and Terri to discuss her situation,” Gibbs said, adding that a Florida attorney pointed out the mistake to him last week.

"It was not Diane Meyer who was mistaken; it was Judge Greer,” Gibbs said in a statement.

“As an officer of the court, I feel obliged to provide this information to Judge Greer in the form of a motion asking him to declare that, in fact, a mistake in dates had erroneously influenced his decision in 2000,” said Gibbs.

"If Judge Greer's 2000 Order authorizing Michael Schiavo to end his wife's life were a criminal death sentence, Terri would be entitled to a new trial on the basis of reversible error,” he continued.

“Although Terri is not a criminal, she is still under a court-imposed death order, an order that is the equivalent of a death penalty. Therefore, we are asking Judge Greer to correct his mistake by either reversing his 2000 Order or conducting a new trial,” said Gibbs.