| > You could wheel the prisoner on a bed into the courtroom with machines beeping. What would this judge’s ruling say to do? You can “see” the “living” prisoner present, but it’s not medically or legally known at that moment if it’s reversible, and if it’s not, the declaration of “death” actually has urgent ramifications for other people. Which is why the same law also says that "In the event that artificial means of support preclude a determination that [spontaneous respiratory and circulatory] functions have ceased, a person will be considered dead if in the announced opinion of two physicians, based on ordinary standards of medical practice, that person has experienced an irreversible cessation of spontaneous brain functions." I mean, seriously, just Google "Iowa death definition" and you can find all this. There is no loophole whereby the judge gets to just go with his gut. > It’s precisely because there can be such complicated corner cases that we absolutely should not accept a judge’s snappy line of rhetoric about seeing the prisoner present in the courtroom as legal basis. It's not the legal basis. It's, like you said, a snappy line of rhetoric. In the written decision/order the judge will refer to the statute and to the uncontested fact that the man's lack of respiratory and circulatory functioning was reversed. > This has direct implications because that one-off armchair wisdom of that one judge suddenly affects what the state definition of death means by “irreversible” even if that was not the common sense intention. No, it doesn't. A judge's snappy rhetoric doesn't make new law. You're tilting at windmills here. |