In all fairness...

Perhaps, in scrupulous fairness, it's time to eat a little crow, at least on the autopsy issue.

Michael Schaivo's attorney, George Felos, has said that his client wants Dr. John Thogmartin, the Pinellas County Chief Medical Examiner, to perform an autopsy on Terri to prove the extent of her brain damage.

This desire isn't completely exculpatory, of course. Those suspicious injuries to Terri discovered in 1991, interpreted by the examining physician as consistent with repeated beatings, remain. In particular, the compression injury to her neck, consistent with strangulation, deserves attention. It might simply be that Michael believes that no further incriminating evidence is likely to come from an autopsy at this late date. Or- unlikely as it seems- maybe somebody else was repeatedly beating Terry up- someone who, like Michael, fits the profile of an abuser.

If Dr. Thogmartin does, indeed, perform an independent autopsy- one done with an open mind- this is certainly good news.

But as Blogs for Terri observes, the appropriate time for tests- CAT scans, etc., to be conducted for the purpose of determining the extent of Terri's brain damage (they should have been done routinely, but were never performed in her case) would probably be while she is still alive- and, for that matter, really would have been before her feedng tube was removed in the first place!

It should be emphasized, too, that whether Michael is guilty of spousal abuse or not- and whether or not it caused her brain damage- he is still guilty of murdering his wife. He is having her starved to death.

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