Part five of five
At the Oakland County Probate Court, relationships between the four judges as well as those between the judges and the attorneys who work in their courtrooms are not simply limited to judicial campaigns. They have a history that is not always on the surface.
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| Judge Jennifer Callaghan |
Oakland County Probate Chief Judge Kathleen Ryan, retiring probate judge Elizabeth Pezzetti, and Judges Linda S. Hallmark and Daniel A. O’Brien attended as “Honored Guests.” Ultimately, Callaghan won with 68 percent of the vote.
Callaghan’s husband Sean is an FBI agent serving in the Detroit office.
Her Judicial Staff Attorney Christine A. Waid used to work for former Oakland County Public Administrator Jon Munger. His firm’s email address is still listed on her profile at the State Bar of Michigan (SBM) and her name is included an attorney with the firm listed as a defendant in a 2016 lawsuit.
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| Jon B. Munger |
Yun and former Oakland County Public Administrator Jon B. Munger worked out of the same address on Gateway Park Drive in Clarkston, Michigan, before Munger relocated his Munger & Associates headquarters half a mile down the street. While Callaghan recuses herself as judge in Yun cases, Munger regularly appears in front of her.
The ongoing deceased estate hearings concerning musician and civil rights activist Aretha Franklin, who passed away in August 2018 without leaving a will, is presided over by Callaghan.
As he is presently the guardian to Franklin’s eldest son, Clarence, Munger is an interested party in the case.
Judge Linda S. Hallmark was appointed as Oakland County Probate Court Judge in 1997 by then–Governor John Engler (R) after spending three years in private practice at May’s then–law firm May & May, PC. She has been unopposed since taking the bench.
May has donated not only to judicial campaigns, but to individuals running for Michigan’s House and Senate. ...
Civil Death for the Developmentally Disabled
According to a March 2018 report released by the National Council on Disabilities, an estimated 1.3 million Americans with disabilities have been directly impacted by guardianship. [Dohn] Hoyle asserts that 73 percent of Michigan’s developmentally disabled population are under some form of guardianship.
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| Dohn Hoyle |
In its report, the Council took the system to task.
“It has often been noted that an individual subject to guardianship moves through the world indistinguishable from the rest of the population,” the report noted, “except that he or she has undergone a kind of civil death and is no longer permitted to participate in society without mediation through the actions of another if at all.”
The report’s key findings stated that “people with disabilities are widely (and erroneously) seen as less capable of making autonomous decisions than other adults regardless of the actual impact of their disability on their cognitive or decision-making abilities. This can lead to guardianship petitions being filed when it is not appropriate and to guardianship being imposed when it is not warranted by the facts and circumstances.”
“Prisoners have more rights than people under guardianship,” Hoyle says. “I don’t think people recognize that, they ignore it or don’t pay attention to it. So, probate judges are able to continue what they’ve always done, which is not to the benefit of the people who are given guardians.”
Full Article and Source:
The Fortress: Part Five of Five: Protected by Secrecy and Ageism
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