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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 28, 2005 / 17 Adar II, 5765

Starved of justice

By Jack Kelly

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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The law and justice often take divergent paths. This was the theme of Stanley Kramer's 1961 masterpiece, "Judgment at Nuremberg."


Spencer Tracy plays Dan Haywood, an American judge presiding over the trial of four German judges accused of war crimes. Three are Nazi functionaries. The fourth is Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster), a distinguished jurist who despised Hitler.


Janning is convicted for having sentenced an elderly Jew, Feldenstein, to death for having sex with a young "Aryan" woman. There was evidence presented at trial that Feldenstein did indeed have sex with Irene Hoffman (Judy Garland), and this was a violation of Hitler's Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. But Janning is convicted because the law he enforced was unjust. A judge's responsibility, Haywood said, is to stand for justice when standing for something is most difficult.


When U.S. District Judge James Whittemore authorized the killing of Terri Schiavo, he could claim he was following the law. But no one will accuse him of standing for justice.


The state trial judge, George Greer, determined as a matter of fact that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state from which she could never recover, and that she had expressed the desire to have her life ended if she ever were in that condition.


If it were clear this were so, there would be little controversy. But four dozen neurologists think Terri was misdiagnosed. And Greer's finding that she would want to die is based solely on the testimony of her husband, who is living with another woman by whom he has fathered two children, and who stands to inherit her estate.


Greer did not appoint a guardian for Terri, even though it was clear her interests diverged from those of her husband. He never ordered an MRI or a PET scan, the only way to determine the actual extent of her brain damage. This is equivalent to ignoring DNA evidence in a murder trial.


Those who would have us believe in Greer's finding of fact also want us to believe that starving someone to death is "withdrawal of life support," and that death by starvation is painless.


Specious as his fact finding was, Greer dotted his i's and crossed his t's with regard to legal procedure. All subsequent legal reviews have been of the law, not of the facts. It was to get a fresh look at the facts that Congress passed legislation to permit review of the case in federal court.


Hugh Hewitt, among other things a law professor, notes that it is common practice for federal courts to issue injunctions when it is endangered bugs or plants that are at risk. But Judge Whittemore found the narrowest grounds he could to refuse to order reinstatement of Terri's feeding tube. In doing so, he stuck his thumb in Congress' eye, as Greer had done earlier when he ignored a congressional subpoena.


The disdain judges exhibit for the people's elected representatives is leading to a confrontation that will reverberate long after Terri Schiavo's bones have moldered. We've been here before.


"This man sticks to a decision which forbids the people of a Territory from excluding slavery, and he does not because he says it is right in itself — he does not give any opinion on that — but because it has been decided by the court," said Abraham Lincoln of Stephen Douglas' support for the Dred Scott decision. Lincoln believed moral law and the will of the people should prevail over the diktats of the judiciary.


"We are no longer a nation of laws," said a reader of Hewitt's blog. "We are a nation of lawyers. It doesn't matter how carefully we frame a law. It doesn't matter what sort of initiative the voters pass. The elite judges do whatever they want."


No public interest is advanced by Terri Schiavo's death. No harm would have been done by permitting her parents to care for her. If the law demands Terri's death by this cruel means because her existence became inconvenient for her husband, then, as the Charles Dickens character Bumble said, "the law is a ass."


As Terri Schiavo was starving to death, Austria's justice minister announced that a doctor who worked at a clinic where the Nazis killed thousands of disabled children will not be put on trial because he suffers from severe dementia. I'm sure the irony is lost on Judges Greer and Whittemore.

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JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. Comment by clicking here.

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