[KellyRae]

Well let's start by answering your question, b/c I am curious as to what the harm would be in permitting the federal courts to actually review the case in question in a manner which would be meaningful were the Schindlers to ultimately prevail:

One possible de novo claim would come under the Fourteenth Amendment - the state of Florida had denied Terry Schaivo's right to life without due process of law. Note that for these purposes this claim does not have to be a winner, it is just representative of the type of claim that the new federal law would permit the Schindlers to bring and for which de novo review would be applied - and absent a determination that the federal law was unconstitutional, the federal court should operate on the assumption that such a claim could, in fact be brought.

I was unable to locate online the "In re Holliday" case (if you could provide me a link or the actual cite of the case that would be great), but in looking at the other, it was clearly not a precedent which dealt with the hypothetical I described. The hypothetical I was looking for was a situation where a federal court, having been giving jurisdiction to newly consider whether a defendant's rights have been violated, would deny a request to stay an execution in a case where the defendant in question NEVER had the opportunity to bring claims he was permitted to bring under that federal law. The Robinson case involved a defendant who, as would be expected, had previously brought his case through the federal courts and lost on the merits. As such, it is not remotely on point, and doesn't address the fundamental complaint I have with the decision of the court; namely, that an injunction was requested so that the family would be able to bring an action in the federal courts to determine if any of her rights were violated (no such action had been brought - the law which provided the family with the right to bring any such actions was passed the day the injunction was requested) - by denying the injunctive relief that was requested, the family would not be able to bring such an action b/c Terry would die prior to any resolution of such claims. As such, the court effectively rendered the law meaningless, as the law serves no purpose to a dead Terry Schaivo. It is also the reason the dissenting opinion is more compelling to me; it gives the family the right to bring a federal claim of action that the law provided for, and as I have previously explained, for purposes of ruling at the point when the court ruled, two things should have been taken as a given: (a) that the newly enacted federal law was constitutional and (b) that the law was meant to serve some purpose. I would have been fine with the federal courts ultimately determining that Florida's handling of the case was conducted such that Terry's due process rights were not violated - that is, if, in fact, the court actually ever considered this issue. I suspect that such would have been the likely outcome and probably should have been.

Unfortunately, no claims were brought at the federal level in respect of a law which was passed less than 2 weeks prior to her actually dying simply because the federal courts rendered a decision which for all intents and purposes mooted the newly enacted federal legislation. It is also why I find odd your contention that I need to identify for you what "claims" should be subject to de novo review - the federal courts, in rendering the opinions it did, prevented any such "claims" from being passed on at all.