THE United States Supreme Court was accused of “judicial homicide” yesterday after it halted attempts by Jeb Bush, the Florida Governor, to keep alive a brain-damaged woman in a right-to-die case.

Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, which has sustained her for nearly 15 years, could be removed within weeks.

The federal judges’ refusal to back Mr Bush removes one of the last hurdles in Michael Schiavo’s 11-year campaign to allow his wife to die, against the wishes of her parents, who say that he just wants her money so that he can remarry.

“What happened here is judicial homicide, it borders on the criminal,” Bob Schindler, Ms Schiavo’s father, said after the court ruling in Washington. “They’ve ignored all the facts . . . Terri talks, she reacts to the family, she reacts to commands. She needs therapy and she’s been denied it.”

Mrs Schiavo, 41, has been in what some doctors say is a persistent vegetative state since collapsing at her home in St Petersburg, Florida, in 1990.

In 1993, her husband ordered a halt to her treatment, saying that her brain injury was irreversible and claiming to recall a conversation in which she said that she would not wish to be kept alive in such circumstances.

Other family members say that she never mentioned such wishes to them and say that Mr Schiavo’s recollection of such a conversation occurred only after he had won $600,000 (£321,858) in malpractice damages relating to her collapse.

Mrs Schiavo’s feeding tube has twice been withdrawn at her husband’s request after clearance from state courts, beginning the process of death by starvation, only to be replaced after eleventh-hour legal moves by her parents.

On the second occasion, in October 2003, Mr Bush responded to their appeals by rushing through an emergency law allowing him to order the tube’s re-insertion five days after it was removed. Later the law was ruled unconstitutional, a decision that now has been upheld on appeal by the US Supreme Court.

George Felos, Mr Schiavo’s lawyer, said: “This was a very important decision, in principle.” He said that his client’s campaign is motivated only by the desire to see his wife’s right to die fulfilled. “Remember, here was a woman who had a right not to be tube-fed against her will upheld by the courts, and the Governor sent men with guns to her death bed, removed her and had surgery performed against her will.”

Pending the Supreme Court’s decision on Monday, Mr Schiavo, who is engaged to another woman with whom he has two children, had been barred by a state judge from having his wife’s feeding line removed. Legal experts say that the stay is likely to be lifted.

The American Civil Liberties Union has welcomed the Supreme Court’s rejection of Mr Bush’s appeal, saying that the Governor’s actions were an unwarranted intrusion into the judicial and constitutional process. They say that the case should be about Mrs Schiavo’s supposed request to be allowed to die, not that of her loved ones to keep her alive by artificial means.

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