Saturday, February 19, 2005
Open letter to Attorney General Charlie Christ and State's Attorney Bernie McCabe
Your job as Attorney General is to protect the people of Florida from being victimized by criminals.
Michael Schiavo is criminally victimizing his ward Terri, and has been doing so for years. It is your job to stop him.
Perhaps you are embarassed at your failure to have stopped Michael earlier. You are afraid that if you intervene now, facts will come to light that will leave you and your colleagues with egg on your faces; you think that if Terri can just 'disappear', you'll come out untainted.
A few years ago that might have been true.
No longer.
People know that Terri is not a vegetable. People know that her husband Michael has been deliberately and criminally trying to worsen her incapacity so as to justify putting her to death. People know that you have the authority and duty to act. And if you fail to do so, people will know you have innocent blood on your hands.
To be sure, it may be difficult to act now and admit you've been neglectful in the past, but if you become the hero who saves Terri, people will forgive your mistakes. You may find yourself with a little egg on your face, but if you do what's right it won't stick.
Almost two thousand years ago, a Roman governor thought he could wash his hands of an innocent man's blood when he handed him over to a mob for execution. That blood never came clean, and it never will. You have the power and duty to act to save an innocent woman from a cruel and barbaric execution. Don't be a Pontius Pilate.
Michael Schiavo is criminally victimizing his ward Terri, and has been doing so for years. It is your job to stop him.
Perhaps you are embarassed at your failure to have stopped Michael earlier. You are afraid that if you intervene now, facts will come to light that will leave you and your colleagues with egg on your faces; you think that if Terri can just 'disappear', you'll come out untainted.
A few years ago that might have been true.
No longer.
People know that Terri is not a vegetable. People know that her husband Michael has been deliberately and criminally trying to worsen her incapacity so as to justify putting her to death. People know that you have the authority and duty to act. And if you fail to do so, people will know you have innocent blood on your hands.
To be sure, it may be difficult to act now and admit you've been neglectful in the past, but if you become the hero who saves Terri, people will forgive your mistakes. You may find yourself with a little egg on your face, but if you do what's right it won't stick.
Almost two thousand years ago, a Roman governor thought he could wash his hands of an innocent man's blood when he handed him over to a mob for execution. That blood never came clean, and it never will. You have the power and duty to act to save an innocent woman from a cruel and barbaric execution. Don't be a Pontius Pilate.
