George J. Felos | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 1952 New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | J.D., Boston University School of Law |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
George James Felos (born March 1952) is an American lawyer specializing in right-to-die cases. He is best known for representing Terri Schiavo's husband Michael. [1]
Raised Greek-Orthodox, Felos graduated from Boston University School of Law with a Juris Doctor in 1976. He was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1977.
| Articles relating to the |
| Terri Schiavo case |
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Main article |
| Others involved |
James E. King |
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In 1990 he represented the family of Estelle Browning in an earlier right-to-die case at the Florida Supreme Court. [2] Browning while still healthy had written a living will asking not to be artificially kept alive, before suffering a serious stroke which had left her in a nursing home reliant on a feeding tube for nearly 3 years; a judge had prevented the will being enacted, but Felos litigated the case even after Browning's death in 1989. [3] In 1990 in a "landmark ruling" the Florida Supreme Court decided in Browning's favor, ruling that the permanently incapacitated need not be force-fed. [4]
His conduct in the Schiavo case caused controversy, because he had Terry Schiavo moved to the Woodside Hospice, Florida, where until recently he had been chairman of the board. [5]
He is also the author of Litigation as Spiritual Practice (Blue Dolphin Publishing), which combined discussion of legal practice with spiritual reflections on meditation and new-age religious beliefs. [6]
The right to die is a concept based on the opinion that human beings are entitled to end their life or undergo voluntary euthanasia. Possession of this right is often understood that a person with a terminal illness, or without the will to continue living, should be allowed to end their own life, use assisted suicide, or to decline life-prolonging treatment. The question of whom, if anyone, should be empowered to make this decision is often central to the debate.
Charles Hamilton Houston was a prominent African-American lawyer, Dean of Howard University Law School, and NAACP first special counsel, or Litigation Director. A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School, Houston played a significant role in dismantling Jim Crow laws, especially attacking segregation in schools and racial housing covenants. He earned the title "The Man Who Killed Jim Crow".
The Terri Schiavo case was a right-to-die legal case in the United States from 1998 to 2005, involving Theresa Marie Schiavo, a woman in an irreversible persistent vegetative state. Schiavo's husband and legal guardian argued that Schiavo would not have wanted prolonged artificial life support without the prospect of recovery, and in 1998 elected to remove her feeding tube. Schiavo's parents disputed her husband's assertions and challenged Schiavo's medical diagnosis, arguing in favor of continuing artificial nutrition and hydration. The highly publicized and prolonged series of legal challenges presented by her parents, which ultimately involved state and federal politicians up to the level of President George W. Bush, caused a seven-year delay before Schiavo's feeding tube was ultimately removed.
Clarence Earl Gideon was a poor drifter accused in a Florida state court of felony theft. His case resulted in the landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision Gideon v. Wainwright, holding that a criminal defendant who cannot afford to hire a lawyer must be provided one at no cost.
George W. Greer is a retired Florida circuit judge who served in the Pinellas-Pasco County Circuit Court, family law division, in Clearwater, Florida. He received national attention in 2005 when he presided over the Terri Schiavo case.
James David Whittemore is a Senior United States District Judge presently serving in the Tampa division of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. He was previously a Florida state trial court judge, a federal public defender, and an attorney in private practice who won a criminal case before the United States Supreme Court. As a federal judge, Whittemore presided over a number of high-profile cases, including a lawsuit against Major League Baseball to challenge its draft procedure, and the Terri Schiavo case, after the United States Congress had specifically given the Middle District of Florida jurisdiction to hear the seven-year-long fight over whether the brain-damaged Schiavo should be taken off life support.
The Palm Sunday Compromise, formally known as the Act for the relief of the parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo, is an Act of Congress passed on March 21, 2005, to allow the case of Terri Schiavo to be moved into a federal court. The name "Palm Sunday Compromise" was coined by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, referring to it having been passed on Palm Sunday.
Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, 497 U.S. 261 (1990), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court involving a young adult incompetent. The first "right to die" case ever heard by the Court, Cruzan was argued on December 6, 1989 and decided on June 25, 1990. In a 5–4 decision, the Court affirmed the earlier ruling of the Supreme Court of Missouri and ruled in favor of the State of Missouri, finding it was acceptable to require "clear and convincing evidence" of a patient's wishes for removal of life support. A significant outcome of the case was the creation of advance health directives.
The legislative, executive, and judicial branches, of both the United States federal government and the State of Florida, were involved in the case of Terri Schiavo. In November 1998 Michael Schiavo, husband of Terri Schiavo, first sought permission to remove his wife's feeding tube. Schiavo had suffered brain damage in February 1990, and in February 2000 had been ruled by a Florida circuit court to be in a persistent vegetative state. Her feeding tube was removed first on April 26, 2001, but was reinserted two days later on an appeal by her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler.
The case of Terri Schiavo became the subject of intense public debate and activism.
The Thomas More Law Center is a Christian, conservative, nonprofit, public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and active throughout the United States. According to its website, its goals are to "preserve America's Judeo-Christian heritage, defend the religious freedom of Christians, restore time-honored moral and family values, protect the sanctity of human life, and promote a strong national defense and a free and sovereign United States of America."
Thomas Che Goldstein, known as simply Tom Goldstein, is an American lawyer known for his advocacy before and blogging about the Supreme Court of the United States. He was a founding partner of Goldstein and Howe, a Washington, D.C., firm specializing in Supreme Court litigation, and was, until the end of 2010, a partner at Akin Gump, where he was co-head of the litigation and Supreme Court practices. In 2003, he co-founded SCOTUSblog, the most widely read blog covering the Supreme Court, and remains the publisher and occasional contributor, providing analyses and summaries of Supreme Court decisions and cert petitions. He previously taught Supreme Court Litigation at Harvard Law School, and Stanford Law School from 2004-2012.
Sidley Austin LLP, formerly known as Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP, is a general practice law firm based in the United States, with a focus on expertise in transactional and litigation matters. The current firm was formed as the result of the 2001 merger of two predecessors: the Chicago-based Sidley & Austin, founded in 1866, and the New York–based Brown & Wood, founded in 1914. The firm's headquarters is at One South Dearborn in Chicago's Loop.
Thomas John Perrelli is an American lawyer and the former United States Associate Attorney General. He served as Associate Attorney General during the administration of President Barack Obama. Perrelli also served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States in the late 1990s.
Pro se legal representation comes from Latin pro se, meaning "for oneself" or "on behalf of themselves", which in modern law means to argue on one's own behalf in a legal proceeding as a defendant or plaintiff in civil cases or a defendant in criminal cases.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP is a global law firm, founded in Los Angeles in 1890. The firm includes approximately 1,200 attorneys and 1,000 staff located in 20 offices around the world, including North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963), is a 6-to-3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the reservation of jurisdiction by a federal district court did not bar the U.S. Supreme Court from reviewing a state court's ruling, and also overturned certain laws enacted by the state of Virginia in 1956 as part of the Stanley Plan and massive resistance, as violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The statutes here stricken down by the Supreme Court had expanded the definitions of the traditional common law crimes of champerty and maintenance, as well as barratry, and had been targeted at the NAACP and its civil rights litigation.
James Bernard Sanderlin was a lawyer who, during the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, used litigation to fight for equality and against discrimination in Pinellas County, Florida. During this time Sanderlin was one of only five African American attorneys who practiced in racially divided St. Petersburg, Florida. Sanderlin devoted his career to unifying blacks and whites in his community in an effort to move toward social and legal equality. While living in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 1950s, Sanderlin felt compelled to move to the South to try to make a difference for minorities there. All of his life he had lived peacefully alongside whites, so it was not hard for him to envision an American society where the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision was implemented and equality was practiced and not just talked about.
George Euripedes Tragos is a Criminal Defense and Personal Injury attorney located in Clearwater, Florida. He has participated in a number of cases that have received national attention; these include the Terri Schiavo case, a civil suit against Nick Hogan, and the Stephen Coffeen case in which he successfully argued what has been dubbed the "Red Bull defense". He is senior partner in the Law Firm of Tragos and Sartes, PA.
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