He said the law is clear that such cases as the Finn and Schiavo matters are to be decided in state courts. Turley said that as the U.S. House debated its proposal to give jurisdiction over Schiavo's case to federal courts, members of Congress were calling him. " 'Is there any way I can vote for this without violating federalist principles?' " he recalled one member asking him. "I said, 'No. There is no way to spin this.' "
Turley said that in addition to his legal knowledge of the issue, he has personal experience. His family recently had to make a decision about his father after he suffered a severe stroke. "It's very common for there to be division within a family as to the termination of life support," he said, "and I know our decision would not have been helped by having 300 million Americans in the room with us. We could barely handle five people."
Frank Nuar and others pray for Hugh Finn outside Annaburg Manor nursing home in Manassas. Finn's case sparked a political furor.
(1998 Photo Tyler Mallory For The Washington Post)
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Sara Rosenbaum, chairman of the Department of Health Policy at George Washington University School of Public Health, said that hundreds, if not thousands, of cases such as the Schiavo and Finn matters are in the courts all the time. She said there is no legal legacy left by the cases because the law is clear and the debate fades and is replaced by something else.
"Cases involving the terrible complexity around death and living and ending medical treatment are not unusual events," she said. "What happens each time, as social values shift or as the political context shifts, is that we revisit this with amnesia about the last time that we visited them."
For Michele Finn, the issue never fades. Her husband, a morning TV anchor in Louisville, was left severely brain-damaged after an automobile accident in March 1995. She had him transferred to a world-renowned facility in Philadelphia. After months of treatment, doctors told her that nothing more could be done to help her husband.
Michele Finn moved him to the nursing home in Manassas so he would be close to his parents. His father visited him every day.
Finn has made it her life's work to be an advocate for patients with brain injuries. She is a government relations consultant for the Brain Injury Association of Kentucky.
"A lot of people say there are reasons for things that happen," she said. "I'm not sure that's true. But we can all decide how we are going to handle tragic situations, and that is what I have tried to do, to help other people who need to be helped."
Staff writer Chris L. Jenkins and staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.
