Like Jonah and Derb I have reservations about the Schiavo legislation. While Congress clearly has the authority to regulate federal court jurisdiction, and to provide for such jurisdiction so as to ensure that state courts act within constitutional constraints, I feel the legislation is in appropriate on several grounds. First, state courts make these sorts of decisions all the time in life-or-death situations, including death penalty cases without equivalent federal interference. Second, this creates a terrible precedent for ad hoc federal interference in high-profile cases of injustice. Private relief legislation is rightfully disfavored. Third, after-the-fact efforts to undue state court judgments are also a bad thing. If Congress wants to use this case as the basis for new legislation to provide for federal court jurisdiction where state courts violate incapacitated individuals’ federal due process rights, that would be fine and dandy. Unprecedented ex post facto challenges to state court judgments, on the other hand, should be avoided — even when the cause is just (and, yes, even when a life may be at stake).

Finally, I would also note that the act in question is likely to be a futile symbolic act. With all respect to Professor Destro, whom I respect greatly, I do not think the federal constitutional claim has much weight at all — and evidently the federal district court judge agreed. Others with some sympathy for the claim concur. For instance, Ann Althouse was similarly skeptical (and her post on the federalism aspects of the case is also worth reading).