Coma Woman Court Ruling Imminent, Says Lawyer

A lawyer for the husband of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman at the centre of a life-or-death legal battle, says he expects a court ruling today.

Meanwhile, in Tampa, Florida, warning that Terri was “fading quickly” and might die at any moment, her parents begged the federal appeals court to order her feeding tube to be reinserted.


A lawyer for parents Bob and Mary Schindler said in a court filing yesterday that the 41-year-old woman might die before they could get a chance to fully argue their case that her rights were being violated. The appeal came after a federal judge in Tampa rejected the parents’ emergency request.

“Where, as here, death is imminent, it is hard to imagine more critical and exigent circumstances,” lawyer David Gibbs said in the appeal filed electronically with the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

“Terri is fading quickly and her parents reasonably fear that her death is imminent.”

The appeals court did not indicate when it might rule, but George Felos, the lawyer for Terri’s husband, Michael Schiavo, told the Associated Press that he expected a decision before daybreak today, local time.

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