Word: muir
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...eleven days, Superior Court Judge Robert Muir Jr. of Morris County, N.J., pondered the painful, unprecedented legal problem: Did the anguished parents of 21-year-old Karen Anne Quinlan have the right to switch off the respirator that had kept her alive since she fell into a deep coma in April? Last week Muir announced his decision. In a 44-page ruling, he noted sadly that he had to discount "the compassion, empathy, sympathy" he felt toward the Quinlan family. Both "judicial conscience and morality," he went on, told him that Karen's fate was being handled properly...
Weak Case. The judge rejected all of the arguments raised by Joseph Quinlan's lawyer. Karen's reported past statements that she would not want to have her life artificially prolonged were dismissed as "too theoretical." The constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment did not apply, Muir said, because medical treatment "where its goal is the sustenance of life is not something degrading, arbitrarily inflicted, unacceptable to contemporary society or unnecessary." As for the right of privacy, it had to be subordinate in this case to "the state's interest in preservation of life." Muir noted...
Critics who argue that the decision is the equivalent of a life sentence for Karen felt the judge was far too cautious in dealing with the broad philosophical issues involved in the case. But most legal experts agreed that Muir had to rule as he did because of the weakness of the case presented by Joseph Quinlan's lawyer...
...Superior Court Judge Robert Muir Jr., 43, a relative newcomer to the bench but a man with a reputation for doing his legal homework, confronts the most difficult kind of decision any judge can face, a decision with a life in the balance. Because it deals with some of the most fundamental aspects of human existence, the Quinlan case has become the focus of increasing attention from doctors, lawyers and moral thinkers (TIME, Sept. 29 and Oct. 27), but it is up to Muir alone to rule whether there is a point beyond which life need no longer be preserved...
...midst of all these uncertainties, Judge Muir gave only the barest hint of how he would rule. Asked by the Quinlans' attorney to visit Karen in the hospital, Muir declined. "I don't think it's appropriate for me to go see her," he replied. "I'm an ordinary human being with ordinary thoughts and ordinary emotions. My position in this case is to decide on the basis of the evidence presented. Emotion is an aspect that I cannot decide a case...