Florida Judge George Greer, who ordered the feeding tube of brain-damaged Terri Schiavo removed, has been called a murderer and told that he’s going to hell.
He has been vilified by evangelical Christians, right-wing radio talk hosts, right-to-life advocates, anti-abortion campaigners and Republican politicians — House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Schiavo was the victim of “murder” and “medical terrorism.”
Yet friends and acquaintances say Greer is a kind and compassionate conservative, a calm and polite Republican, a churchgoer with a keen intellect and a profound respect for the law. He probably never expected to have to live under police guard.
“Judge Greer is an evangelical Christian man,” Bruce McManus, a Florida probate lawyer, told the St. Petersburg Times. “He believes in the right to life as much as some of the people who are criticizing him so harshly.
“But he also believes in the rule of law, which he was sworn to uphold. To the best of his ability, that’s what he is trying to do.”
Center of maelstrom
A Southern Baptist, Greer, 63, found himself at the center of a maelstrom as a result of his February 2000 decision to allow Michael Schiavo to withdraw nourishment from his brain-damaged wife Terri, which Greer decided is what she would have wanted.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Greer grew up in the Florida west coast town of Dunedin, where he played Little League baseball, and studied at Florida State University, where he was a roommate of the late rock bad boy Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors.
He earned a bachelor’s degree at Florida State University and a law degree from the University of Florida College of Law, practiced zoning law and served two terms as a county commissioner before being elected to the Pinellas Circuit Court in 1992.
As a result of the fallout from the Schiavo case, Greer and his family are under armed guard. The Pinellas County Court has received tens of thousands of e-mails criticizing Greer, some of them threatening.
‘Are you related to Mengele?’
A St. Petersburg Times story quoted one writer as saying: “Are you related to (Nazi torturer Josef) Mengele, or just a student?”
“The tone is very hateful,” court spokesman Ron Stuart told the Miami Herald. “People claim to be Christian but the things they are wishing on people are not very Christian sounding.”
As the U.S. Congress hastily passed a law to wrest control of the case from Greer, DeLay, the Texas Republican, said of Schiavo’s plight: “Murder is being committed against a defenseless American citizen in Florida.”
“Schiavo’s life is not slipping away — it is being violently wrenched from her body in an act of medical terrorism.”
Yet Greer’s decisions on Schiavo’s fate have been repeatedly upheld by Florida appellate courts. Federal courts, called into the Schiavo dispute by Congress, rejected the case — effectively upholding Greer.
“He may have a personal belief in the right to life,” lawyer Denis deVlaming, a longtime friend of Greer, told the Miami Herald. “But he doesn’t have the luxury to allow any of that to enter into his decision.”
