Disabled man’s removal from husband into ‘temporary’ guardianship to drag on for nearly 2 years

Tug-of-war over what's best for Ryan Morris continued this week during a court hearing in Riverside Superior Court

 

Ryan Morris, right, and husband Sean Spicer, at their wedding in 2014., Spicer became Morris’ legal guardian. (Photo courtesy probate court file)

By Teri Sforza

When a judge removed Ryan Morris from the care of his husband last year — concluding that Morris doesn’t have the mental capacity to understand what a marriage is and, thus, can’t consent to being married — the county stepped in as his temporary legal guardian and moved him to a new home.

It was supposed to mark a fresh, if difficult, reset. But Morris’ attorneys appealed that decision, and, a year-and-a-half later, Morris still lacks a permanent guardian. No resolution is expected before March, and the tug-of-war over what’s best for him continues.

Should the Riverside County Public Guardian’s Office’s temporary appointment become permanent? Should the Department of Developmental Services take over?

Identical twins play on the beach in San Clemente on
Dec. 19, 2000. They were 6. Ronald Moore, right,
holds brother Ryan. (Staff Photo / Eugene Garcia )

Ryan Morris’ identical twin brother and biological family from Orange County have asked for the job, and Morris himself has expressed a desire for his husband, whose care he was removed from after “numerous instances of abusive behavior,” according to a judge — to serve as his guardian. He also has said he wants his adoptive mother, who hosted the wedding in her backyard, to share the job.

His adoptive mother and Riverside County are the subjects of a $25 million lawsuit filed by the parents of “Princess” Diane Ramirez, a disabled foster child who died in Morris’ care last year. Michelle Morris neglected to obtain emergency medical help for the girl in a timely manner, and her staff’s actions posed an immediate risk to the children placed in care at her home in Murrieta, according to an investigation by the California Department of Social Services. Michelle Morris surrendered her foster care license in the wake of Ramirez’s death.

All options are for naught, though, at least for now.

“As important and as complex as the case is, I don’t know that I can do much about it today,” said Riverside Superior Court Judge Thomas H. Cahraman during a virtual proceeding on Thursday, Oct. 15. “All those petitions have to await the Court of Appeal decision.”

Waiting

Ryan Morris, who has the intellectual ability of a young child, married Sean Spicer, a man of regular intelligence 18 years his senior, in a ceremony that the disabled man mistook for a baptism in his mom’s yard in 2014. His biological family feared he was the victim of sexual abuse and began fighting to oust Spicer as legal guardian in 2016. They won on May 17, 2019.

Morris’ court-appointed and county-funded attorneys quickly filed an appeal, saying the decision was a blow to the rights of the disabled everywhere. It was Morris’ idea to get married, not Spicer’s, they said. Morris understands what marriage is and is angry that his biological relatives are trying to separate him from the person he loves, they contend. They argue that the core of the appeal is Morris’ right as a disabled person to choose who he’s married to and who is his conservator.

Ronald Moore, left, and identical twin Ryan Morris
embrace after seeing each for the first time in 13
years at a court hearing on Ryan’s conservatorship
 in July 2015. (Photo courtesy of Monica Mukai)

This highly unusual case raises profoundly uncomfortable issues, pitting two fundamental rights squarely against one another: the hard-won right for the disabled to marry and have sex lives, just like everyone else, and their right to be protected from abuse and undue influence.

It also raises questions about the importance of blood relations. Ryan Morris and his identical twin, Ronald Moore, were separated by the state when the two were toddlers, despite the vehement objections of their biological family. The nettlesome issues were probed in a three-part series by the Southern California News Group in 2017.

Morris did not attend the virtual proceedings Thursday, but Spicer did. He was not pleased to hear that the biological family wants the public guardian removed.

“I have not observed Ryan having any issues with his current placement or current conservator,” Spicer told the judge. “She has made decisions that I have not appreciated, but that’s the nature of her job. In the big picture, I believe the public guardian is doing a good job given the situation, and anyone who claims differently probably has ulterior motives.”

Morris’ biological aunt, Monica Mukai, told the judge that Morris is living in a restricted environment without adequate access to educational and speech therapy, despite his challenges. That’s a violation of his civil and constitutional rights, she argued in court paperwork that the judge hadn’t seen and asked her to refile.

Continued delays allow law firms to rack up fees at taxpayer expense and leave Morris in limbo, she said after the proceedings.

“A temporary conservatorship is supposed to be 30 to 60 days. This will take it to nearly two years. It’s not an abuse of the law. It’s lawlessness.”

 

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Disabled man’s removal from husband into ‘temporary’ guardianship to drag on for nearly 2 years