The Orlando Sentinel

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. – Terri Schiavo endured her eighth day without food or water Friday, as her anguished father warned that she was “down to her last hours.”

As the time slipped away, the hopes, pleas and anger of Schiavo’s parents and their supporters were directed at Gov. Jeb Bush – the man once viewed by conservatives as the brain-damaged woman’s savior.

But the governor, who stayed in his office most of the day, said although he wants to help, there doesn’t appear to be anything more he can do.

Outside the Governor’s Mansion, about two dozen Good Friday demonstrators endured heavy rains focused on what they called their last hope.

One carried a sign saying, “Jeb, You Shall Not Murder.” Other placards likened the governor to Pontius Pilate, suggesting that Bush was unwilling to intervene to help the 41-year-old severely brain-damaged woman.

At the hospice in Pinellas Park where Schiavo lives, relatives and others also were hoping for a miracle as several more people were arrested and charged with trespassing for trying to deliver water to her.

“I told her that we’re still fighting for her, and she shouldn’t give up because we’re not,” said Bob Schindler, whose eyes were teary after visiting his daughter late Friday. “But I think the people who are anxious to see her die are getting their wish. It’s happening.”

Inside the hospice, Michael Schiavo spent much of the day with his wife – heartsick, his attorney said, that his in-laws continued to battle against what he proved to the courts were Terri’s wishes: not to be kept alive in what doctors call a permanently unconscious state.

Schiavo had been nourished for 15 years by a feeding tube. That tube was removed March 18, and doctors don’t expect her to linger more than another week.

“She is down to her last hours, so something has to be done, and it has to be done quick,” Schindler said Friday.

His plea and others came on another day of courtroom action by the Schindlers’ lawyers. Friday evening, they made a last-ditch effort to convince a state judge to restore Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube.

Attorney Barbara Weller told the judge that she asked Schiavo on March 18 whether she wanted to live. Weller said Schiavo then mouthed the sounds, “Ahhhh” and “Waaaaaaa.”

David Gibbs, attorney for the Schindlers, said, “We stand here quite honestly expecting Terri to slip into eternity over this Easter weekend.”

Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer, who has rejected each of the Schindlers’ appeals, said he wasn’t sure when he would rule on the latest motion.

Attorneys for Michael Schiavo called the latest move by the Schindlers ridiculous. The courts, they said, have ruled numerous times that Terri Schiavo is unaware, and any movement or sounds she makes are involuntary reflexes.

Hamden Baskin III, one of Michael’s attorneys, called for the legal maneuvering to end Friday night.

“The Schindlers need to spend quality time with their daughter, and Michael needs the same,” Baskin said. “It’s time for the lawyers to get out of it.”

Earlier in the day, U.S. District Judge James Whittemore, for the second time in a week, denied a request to reinsert the feeding tube.

Attorneys for the Schindlers immediately appealed to a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court in Atlanta, which, along with the U.S. Supreme Court, has denied a previous request to restore her feedings. Friday night, the Atlanta panel again turned down the Schindlers. Attorneys for the Schindlers said they would appeal to the full appellate court.

FBI agents, meanwhile, arrested a North Carolina man whom they said solicited the murder of Michael Schiavo.

According to the FBI, Richard Alan Meywes, who lives in North Carolina, said in an email written Tuesday that a “bounty with a price tag of $250,000 has been taken out on the head of Michael Schiavo,” adding that, “an additional $50,000 has been offered for the elimination of the judge who ruled against Terry (sic) in Florida.”

For Florida’s governor, who within Republican circles is seen as a possible future presidential contender, the Schiavo case has stirred up some harsh political crosswinds.

Bush has long relied on unswerving support from the party’s right, which gave him renewed praise for pushing the Legislature to act in 2003 to keep Schiavo alive and again calling for action this spring.

But the 2003 law that allowed Schiavo’s feeding tube to be reinserted after six days was eventually declared unconstitutional. And earlier this week, the state Senate rejected Bush’s latest plea that lawmakers approve legislation aimed at continuing sustenance.

So as each legislative and court option melted away, the focus narrowed to the governor.

A clearly weary Bush, though, told reporters late Thursday that he has no intent to defy judicial rulings, despite the mounting criticism from conservatives.

“I understand they’re acting on their heart,” Bush said of those prodding him to act. “I fully appreciate their sentiments … but I cannot go beyond what my powers are, nor would I want to.”

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Bush also conceded his hands are tied on other issues close to conservatives.

“There are 90,000 abortions in this state every year, and that troubles me more than I can describe. But I don’t have some secret powers,” he insisted.

Randall Terry, a longtime anti-abortion activist siding with the Schindlers, has called on Bush to send Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents in to take custody of Schiavo, despite a court order directly blocking that sort of action.

Michael Allen, a constitutional law professor at Stetson University, said Bush likely knows that any such move would be blatantly unconstitutional.

“To be blunt, that’s a description of a dictatorship, that’s what it is,” Allen said. “When the governor seizes someone because he disagrees with what’s being done, there’s just no basis.”

Bush’s office may have fueled conservative emotions earlier this week, when his Department of Children & Families Secretary Lucy Hadi said that state law authorized the agency to intervene without a court order in cases of suspected abuse of a “vulnerable” adult.

But state law also requires that such action be approved within a matter of days by a judge. Bush’s office has sought such permission – claiming that DCF received a complaint that Schiavo was abused or neglected in her hospice and also submitted an affidavit from a neurologist who disputes findings that she is in a persistent vegetative state. But Greer denied DCF’s motion to intervene.

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Doctors say Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, and courts have sided with her husband, Michael Schiavo, who said his wife would choose to end the feedings that have kept her alive. Her parents have consistently fought that action.

Polls released earlier this week by ABC News and the BBC have found that Americans think, by a 2-to-1 margin, that Schiavo should be allowed to die and that government should not interfere. A new poll conducted for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel released Friday also found that 62 percent of likely voters in Florida say they would remove the feeding tube if they were Schiavo’s family member.

Bush’s critics say those numbers show he is out of touch with the mainstream.

“Jeb Bush got involved with this issue to shore up the Republican base and that has now backfired on him,” said Scott Maddox, Florida’s Democratic Party chairman. “He’s turned off most Americans by trying to interfere both with the most private affairs of a family and with the judiciary. I think it’s going to hurt both him and the Republican Party, which is supposed to be about defending the sanctity of marriage and for less government interference.”

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Sensing Bush’s dilemma, some conservatives have rallied to Bush’s side.

“I think the governor has done everything he could do,” said Republican state Sen. Daniel Webster, who sponsored the unsuccessful Senate legislation in the Schiavo case.

Webster said Bush was pivotal in getting the Legislature to act in 2003 and his White House ties helped inspire older brother President Bush into rushing back from his Texas ranch to sign federal legislation for Schiavo approved by Congress last weekend.

“He has worked and pleaded with both the Legislature and Congress to take action,” Webster said.

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John Stemberger, an Orlando, Fla., lawyer who heads the Florida Family Policy Council, said he hoped a way would be found to keep Schiavo alive but he agreed that Bush has likely exhausted all his options. Stemberger said most members of the movement respect Bush for leading the fight to keep her alive, even if ultimately he does not succeed.

“I think the governor has been amazingly creative in trying to exhaust every legal avenue to save this woman’s life, and I feel confident he’s done that,” Stemberger said.

John Thrasher, a former Republican state House speaker who remains among Bush’s closest friends, said the fight has weighed heavily on Bush.

“If anything, I think it enhances his appeal to many conservatives,” Thrasher said. “He has clearly shown his deep concern for their interests and those of the Schindlers. I’m very proud of what Jeb Bush has done. But it’s in God’s hands now. That’s the bottom line.”

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(Orlando Sentinel correspondent Maya Bell contributed to this report.)

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(c) 2005, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

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PHOTOS (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): braindamagedwoman

GRAPHICS (from KRT Graphics, 202-383-6064): 20050324 Schiavo poll

AP-NY-03-25-05 2313EST

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