Clearwater, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Incensing those who opposed the painful 13 day starvation death of Terri Schiavo, a local affiliate of the American Bar Association gave an award for Circuit Court Judge George Greer, the judge who allow Terri's estranged husband to starve her.

The West Pasco Bar Association last Thursday cited Greer's professionalism and integrity when it awarded him with a Special Justice Award.

"We admired his ability to sustain the pressure not to follow the law,'' Joan Nelson Hook, association president, told the Associated Press. "I don't think anyone could ever say his decisions were unlawful."

Alan Scott Miller, another attorney affiliated with the local lawyers group, said Greer was receiving the award "for all of his contributions on the bench, not just the Schiavo case."
"It's like a lifetime achievement award for an actor," Miller explained.

However, a Catholic priest who visited Terri in her final moments of life says Greer is unworthy of any award regarding his jurisprudence.

"On the night before Terri Schiavo died, I said to the national media that Judge Greer was a murderer," Priests for Life director Father Frank Pavone says. "I repeat that today."

"Terri was not dying until she stopped receiving food and water," Pavone explained. "Once deprived of that sustenance, she died. It does not require any legal or medical expertise to recognize that as murder. Nobody who has lost the basic capability to understand that should be honored."

Hook disagreed with Pavone's characterization.

She described Greer's rulings as "very thoughtful" and "meticulous."

"We admired his ability to sustain the pressure not to follow the law," Hook told Associated Press. "I think that shows his character.''

Despite their views about Greer's decisions to allow Terri's starvation, Pavone said no court "has the moral authority to directly and deliberately take innocent life, and those ordered to carry out such decisions are morally obliged to resist them by conscientious objection."

The West Pasco Bar Association's vote for Greer to receive the award was almost unanimous.