Should disabled man see husband who showed ‘abusive behavior’?

Column: After ardent pleas, judge said she doesn't make law, but has to follow it, and the answer is clear

By Teri Sforza

The judge had so much to weigh, it seemed.

Declarations from the psychiatrist and therapist saying no, not yet: Ryan Morris is still vulnerable, adjusting to a new home with his biological family for the first time in his life, away from his adoptive mom (who stands accused of involuntary manslaughter, cruelty to children and dependent adults, and lewd/lascivious conduct) and his husband (who threatened to send him to the psych ward and/or end their marriage when Morris “misbehaved”). Morris shouldn’t visit with such folks just now, the health professionals said.

Then there was the petition from Morris’s husband: He hasn’t been allowed to see Morris since the bio family took over guardianship in May, and asked the court to step in and order regular visits between them.

And finally, there was the request from Morris himself. At age 29, he has the intellectual capacity of a kindergartener. He wasn’t in the courtroom, but he would, indeed, like to see his husband, Morris’ attorney told the judge.

In a highly unusual and contentious case that has raged for years — raising profoundly uncomfortable questions about the hard-won right for disabled people to marry and have sex lives, just like everyone else, and their right to be protected from abuse and undue influence — a Riverside County judge on Wednesday, Aug. 30 said that there was really no choice to make at all.

The law, especially in the wake of the Britney Spears conservatorship debacle, requires the court to honor Morris’ wishes.

“The right to control his social and sexual contacts and relationships are his and his alone,” Judge Jacqueline Jackson told Morris’ biological aunt and new legal conservator, Monica Mukai of San Juan Capistrano, who beseeched the judge to hold off on visits for now.

“Only Ryan holds consent. It’s not a joint right, not given to you, you do not share that right. Only Ryan has that right, under the orders that I’m holding,” the judge said.

Mukai and Morris’s biological family have long had “grave concerns” that Morris is a victim of sexual abuse and dependent-adult abuse. Mukai and the judge did some verbal sparring, but the outcome was not in doubt.

The judge was mindful, however, of the “abusive behavior” that removed Morris’ husband, Sean Spicer, as Morris’ legal guardian in 2019.

‘Misread’?

“The lines between spouse and conservator have been blurred to such an extent that it is no longer in Ryan’s best interest to have Sean in the role of conservator,” a judge wrote back then. “This is evidenced by numerous instances of abusive behavior.”

That includes Spicer, a man of regular intelligence, threatening to send Morris back to his adoptive mother when he misbehaved, threatening to remove his wedding ring and end the marriage, threatening to send Morris for emergency mental health treatment, punishing Morris by restricting visits with his biological family and taking his phone away to prevent contact with them. Morris had bouts of violence, even fighting with Spicer himself.

Morris and Spicer will indeed get to visit, the judge said, but those visits will be supervised. Spicer will pay for the supervision.

Jack Osborn, the publicly appointed attorney charged with representing Morris’ wishes, defended Spicer. The bio family refers to Spicer as a “court-adjudicated abuser” in court filings, but Osborn said that was a “misread” of the 2019 ruling that removed Spicer as conservator.

“The court did say there were certain acts that were abusive,” Osborn said, “but the real issue was that Mr. Spicer was unable to separate his role as conservator and as spouse.” Spicer made some “wrong choices,” Osborn said, including convincing Morris that he was in a battle with his aunt, Mukai, that they had to win. But that baked-in conflict is gone now that Mukai is conservator, and, simply put, Morris wants to see Spicer.

We’ll leave the parsing of the difference between “people who exhibit abusive behavior” and “abusers” to the lawyers, but Mukai worries. She understands that Osborn’s job is to represent Morris’ wishes — but it’s also to make sure Morris is safe, she told the court. As his conservator, that’s her job, too. Morris is easily led and often flip-flops on what he wants, and Mukai feared that his progress could be jeopardized by visits with Spicer right now.

Unaddressed was the elephant in the room: Can Morris legally consent to marriage? In a report for the court, a psychologist concluded that Morris did not have that capacity, “based on his concrete thinking and his limited understanding of a mutual nature of a relationship creating expectations between adults.” His adoptive mother — the one currently facing manslaughter and abuse charges — told Morris he could get a cell phone if he got married, the report said. Video of the ceremony shows that Morris mistook his wedding for a baptism.

That issue, though, was not before this court, the judge said.

Identical twins Ryan and Ronald Moore about age 7.
They liked to watch the trains together in San
Clemente, (Photo courtesy of Monica Mazzei)

Back home

In a longed-for victory for the family, Morris’ conservatorship case will be transferred from Riverside — where his adoptive mother moved to escape “persecution” from Orange County officials who accused her of having Munchausen by proxy (a behavior disorder in which caretakers exaggerate children’s health problems and subject them to unnecessary or inappropriate medical treatment) — and back home to Orange County, where this all began.

That will mean a fresh start for Morris, Mukai said.

Ryan Morris and his identical twin brother Ronald Moore were swept into state custody shortly after their birth in O.C. in 1994, due to their parents’ history of mental illness. Moore emerged healthy; Morris’ diagnoses included cerebral palsy, schizophrenia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, behavior disorder, epilepsy and intellectual disability. Their grandmother sought custody of both boys, but got only Moore, the healthy twin. Morris remained in foster care because of his many special needs, which social workers said were beyond his grandmother’s ability to address.

Morris’ foster mother, Michelle Morris-Kerin, ran a home for the severely disabled. A former social worker, she wanted to adopt the boy. The biological family vehemently objected, but the adoption was approved by the court anyway. Morris-Kerin soon cut off all communication with her new son’s biological family.

Spicer was working in Morris-Kerin’s foster home for severely disabled children in Riverside County when he met Morris. Their wedding was held in Morris-Kerin’s backyard.

Transferring the case to Orange County will take time. There are hiccups getting all the paperwork transferred from the Riverside Public Guardian’s office to Mukai, and with getting services once provided by the Inland Regional Center picked up by the Regional Center of Orange County (quasi-governmental agencies that distribute state funding for the disabled). Mukai has been paying for all that out-of-pocket since she was appointed conservator in May, she said.

But she’s enormously pleased with Morris’ progress since he moved into her bungalow on historic Los Rios Street in San Juan Capistrano. He is having fewer and fewer outbursts, has started classes at Saddleback College — adaptive yoga, core strengthening and conditioning, community skills, a reading lab — attends the Happening Club in San Clemente and recently went with her to Mammoth for a disabled sports program that had him zooming around on a three-wheeled bike.

“No more group homes,” she said he told her.

Full Article & Source:
Should disabled man see husband who showed ‘abusive behavior’?

See Also:
Could woman accused of murder be appointed disabled man’s guardian?

Biological family’s fight for disabled California man finally lands before judge

Part 1: Twins, divided: Is one man happily married or a victim of sexual abuse? 

 

Part 2: Twins, divided: Confusion, concern and ‘I do’ 

 

Part 3: Twins, divided: Brothers will see each other in court

 

 

Biological family’s fight for disabled California man finally lands before judge

Column: Tragically, officials got the Ryan Morris case wrong at just about every turn. Will anything change now?

Ryan Morris with his aunt Monica Mukai during a Christmas tree lightening in San Juan Capistrano. (Photo courtesy of Monica Mukai)

By Teri Sforza

So very much has happened in the six years since Ryan Morris’ biological relatives sought to become his legal guardians.

Morris’ adoptive mother and father in Murrieta were charged with lewd conduct with dependent adults “with the intent of arousing, appealing to, and gratifying the lust, passions, and sexual desires” of themselves and their charges, as well as with neglect contributing to the death of a disabled child in their care. (That eliminated the adoptive mom’s request to be re-appointed Morris’s legal guardian.)

The court removed Morris’ husband from the legal guardian job — his adoptive mother allowed him to marry a man nearly twice his age, despite the fact that Morris has the intellectual ability of a kindergartener and mistook the wedding for a baptism — and found that the husband was abusive toward Morris and kept him in a volatile household. (Morris’ publicly financed attorneys asked the appeals court to return Morris to the husband’s home anyway — a request the court denied.)

Then the Riverside County Public Guardian’s office was appointed as Morris’ “temporary” legal guardian, moving him to a low-stress, neutral home where he could finally start visiting with his biological family from Orange County without fear of being punished. (Both his adoptive mother and husband talked down his bio family and threatened to take away privileges — or send him to the psych ward — when he expressed desire to see or talk to them, according to court documents.)

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) 

Visits with Morris are professionally monitored and going well, according to documents filed with the court. Morris sometimes panics about being punished for being with his biological family, but his relatives are adept at reminding him he’s safe, helping him breathe and talking him down. They help him brush his teeth, learn to bend his knees when walking up stairs, and button his own shirt.

But this “temporary” public guardianship has stretched on for years. Morris’ biological family has clashed with officials there, objecting to constraints on visitation, fearing Morris is being isolated, even filing a court declaration from a social worker saying he was misled about the bio family by the Public Guardian’s office.

Finally, on Thursday, Sept. 1, the court began hearing his biological aunt Monica Mukai’s request to appoint her as his conservator. It was filed in 2016. The bio family has been fighting Morris’ removal from their fold for most of his life, and a well-appointed bedroom has been awaiting him in San Juan Capistrano’s quaint Los Rios Street Historic District for years.

The next court date is Oct. 3, when a trial date is expected to be set.

“This case is old,” said Riverside Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Jackson, “and we need resolution.”

The plight of Brittany Spears focused attention on the abuses that can be attendant to conservatorships, California’s official parlance for legal guardianships for the disabled. The nettlesome issues were probed in a three-part series, “Twins, Divided,” by the Southern California News Group in 2017.

But the outstanding question remains: What does Morris want?

Ryan Morris, right, and husband Sean Spicer, at their wedding in 2014. Morris mistook the ceremony for a baptism. (Photo courtesy probate court file) 

It’s complicated

Morris is easily influenced and subject to manipulation, court proceedings have found.

When he visits with the bio family, he becomes upset when it’s time to leave and says he wants to stay. But his county-appointed attorneys say Morris opposes having anyone in his bio family as conservator, and wants his husband — who was removed for the aforementioned abusive behavior — for that job.

That husband, Sean Spicer, opposes Mukai as legal guardian as well.

To clear up confusion, the bio family has been pushing to get Morris into the courtroom to tell the judge directly what he wants, but his attorneys said Morris doesn’t want to come.

Identical twins Ryan and Ronald Moore about age 7. They liked to watch the trains together in San Clemente. (Photo courtesy of Monica Mukai) 

The bio family does not believe them. “Ryan’s lawyers knew that Sean was abusing him for years and did nothing about it. They knew that a doctor and a judge determined that Ryan was incapable of entering into marriage and maintaining marriage, and they did nothing about it. I don’t trust anything they say,” said Charles S. Krolikowski of Newmeyer & Dillion LLP, attorney for Morris’s identical twin brother, Ronald Moore.

And then there’s the Public Guardian, which has the job temporarily, saying it takes on conservatorships only as a last resort, but there are clearly others who want to volunteer for the job. But the office fears that a trial on Mukai’s request for conservatorship will turn into an “attack” on how the Public Guardian’s office has handled Morris’ case, putting the Public Guardian itself on trial.

Mukai’s critique of the office has, indeed, been withering. But after decades of astonishing acts by the state and its representatives — from deciding that Morris was too disabled to be cared for by his own family, to approving his adoption by Michelle Morris, a woman who cut off all contact with them and now stands accused of abuse, to placing more and more severely disabled children in Michelle Morris’ care despite the Orange County Regional Center asserting she suffered from Munchausen by proxy (a behavior disorder in which caretakers exaggerate children’s health problems and subject them to unnecessary or inappropriate medical treatment), to officials looking past reports of sexual abuse in her home and taping children to wheelchairs and putting wheelchair-bound children into closets until, finally, Michelle Morris was charged with neglect in the case of a girl in her care who died — perhaps some criticism is understandable?

Michelle Morris Kerin (Courtesy of Riverside County DA) 

Forward

This reporter has been following this case for nearly 20 years. The family has learned that it must fight. And there’s some evidence that the Public Guardian’s office has not been completely neutral here.

A social worker asked to provide “relationship building services” among the parties in this case said he was never given the judge’s order removing Spicer or other pertinent background information. He was “fed” misinformation that led him to believe the culprits in this drama were the biological family members, and he blasted Riverside County officials for manipulation and bias in a court declaration.

“I came to the conclusion that I was being used as a pawn by the Public Guardian’s Office to render findings and recommendations without having all of the information I needed to do so,” it said.

The judge did not seem too receptive to the Public Guardian’s fear of criticism at trial, so we’ll see how that unfolds. Officials there may need to toughen up a bit.

Mukai, meanwhile, is excited for her nephew’s future, and she hopes to “set him free.”

“Ryan Morris has voiced a desire to attend college, get help with his dental and medical needs, and spend multiple nights at my residence, where he is provided appealing educational and social opportunities in a very integrative manner with his family and the community at large,” she said in a declaration to the court.

“Ryan’s cries have tragically fallen on deaf ears by the county representatives and agencies for too long. Instead Ryan’s former conservators — Sean Spicer and Michelle Morris — have utilized Ryan’s court appointed attorneys and county representatives, including County Counsel, to keep a wedge between Ryan and his biological family, essentially preventing us from assisting him accomplish these goals….

“I respectfully request that this court allow Ryan to return to Orange County with his biological family where, as the proposed successor conservator, I will work with the Regional Center of Orange County to ‘select the least restrictive appropriate residence….’ I understand very clearly that it would be my duty by law to secure housing, treatment, services, and opportunities that will assist him … to develop maximum self-reliance and independence.”

It can be argued that, tragically, officials got the Ryan Morris case wrong at just about every turn. Will this time be any different?

Full Article & Source:

Biological family’s fight for disabled California man finally lands before judge 

 

See Also: 

Part 1: Twins, divided: Is one man happily married or a victim of sexual abuse? 

 

Part 2: Twins, divided: Confusion, concern and ‘I do’ 

 

Part 3: Twins, divided: Brothers will see each other in court

 

 

Could woman accused of murder be appointed disabled man’s guardian?

A therapist appointed by Riverside County claims he was 'used as a pawn by the Public Guardian's Office'

 

Identical twins Ryan and Ronald Moore about age 7. They liked to watch the trains together in San Clemente, (Photo courtesy of Monica Mazzei)

By Teri Sforza

Michelle Morris Kerin (Courtesy of Riverside County DA)

Just months before Michelle Morris was arrested for murder and lewd conduct, she gloated in an email.

Her letter to a county-appointed therapist for her adopted, profoundly disabled son, Ryan Morris, expressed deep thanks for his support of her legal fight to keep her son isolated from his biological family.

“I think you have really given the Court and Ryan’s attorneys what they need to eliminate the visits of Monica and Ronald although, of course, we know they will not go quietly,” Morris wrote. “We hope it is the gateway for Ryan to return to his home with Sean.”

Sean is Sean Spicer, the man that Morris allowed her son to marry, despite the young man’s inability to understand marriage. A judge removed Spicer as Ryan Morris’ legal guardian in 2019, saying the evidence showed Spicer was abusive. But a petition to make Spicer and Morris the disabled young man’s legal guardians is before a Riverside County judge nonetheless.

Ronald is Ronald Moore, Ryan Morris’ identical twin brother. The twins were separated, and the entire biological family cut off, shortly after Morris adopted Ryan, which the court approved over the biological family’s vehement objections. Twin Ronald, a healthy young man, has a petition pending to be his disabled brother’s legal guardian as well.

And Monica is Monica Mukai, Ryan Morris’ biological aunt, who has been fighting to “free” Ryan from Morris’s grasp long before Morris was accused of second-degree murder of one of her foster children, as well as sexual abuse of disabled people.

The plight of Brittany Spears focused attention on the abuses that can be attendant to conservatorships, California’s official parlance for legal guardianships. But the twists and turns in Ryan Morris’ highly unusual case raise profoundly larger questions, 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.

The nettlesome issues were probed in a three-part series, “Twins, Divided,” by the Southern California News Group in 2017, but the twists keep coming.

Missing context

Morris, who operated a group foster home with her husband in Orange County before relocating it to Murrieta and finally shutting it down as her legal entanglements mounted, wrote her emails to licensed clinical social worker Richard Rowe in March. He had submitted a report to the court critical of Ryan Morris’ biological family members, and Morris expressed her hopes that they would be soon out of the picture once and for all.

Her emails do not reflect well on professionals in Riverside County and its Public Guardian’s Office, which the court appointed as Ryan Morris’ temporary conservator while the case wends its way through the courts.

“I spoke with the Court Investigator for Ryan and she was very open about the county’s disdain for Monica,” Morris wrote. “Ryan struggles to keep his cool with the ongoing visits with Ronald and Monica … we are praying for the end of that before Ryan just can’t take it any more (and Sean, too.)”

What Morris didn’t tell Rowe was that Spicer was ousted as Ryan Morris’ legal guardian because of what the judge called abusive behavior. Spicer would threaten to send Ryan Morris back to his adoptive mother when he misbehaved, threaten to take off his ring and end the marriage, threaten to send him for emergency mental health treatment, and punish him by restricting visits with his biological family and taking his phone away so he couldn’t contact them. Ryan Morris was told that his biological family was bad and wanted to end his marriage.

Ryan Morris has the intellectual capacity of a 5- to 6-year-old, psychological evaluations found, and is easily manipulated. In 2019, a psychologist asked him, “Why get married?” Ryan Morris first talked about his PlayStation Portable, then said, “Because it’s right. … It’s right for people to get married.” The psychologist pressed on: “Before you met Sean, were you thinking that you’d like to get married?” Ryan Morris answered, “We made a deal. That if I get married, I’d have a cellphone,” according to the report filed with the court.

Ryan Morris with his aunt Monica Mukai during a Christmas tree lightening in San Juan Capistrano. (Photo courtesy  Mukai)

The psychologist concluded that Ryan Morris lacked capacity to enter into a marriage based on his concrete thinking and limited understanding of the institution.

But Rowe, the social worker, didn’t know any of that when he wrote critical evaluations to the court. He had never even been given a copy of the judge’s order removing Spicer and placing the county public guardian in control. The vital background didn’t come to his attention until he was called for a deposition by the biological family’s attorney, Charles Krolikowski, a partner with Newmeyer Dillion in Newport Beach, Rowe said in a declaration that went before a judge on Nov. 17.

In his declaration, Rowe disavowed his earlier reports and blasted Riverside County officials for manipulation and bias.

‘Used as a pawn’

Around March 2020, Rowe was asked by Public Guardian Deputy Conservator Shirley Jackson to provide psychotherapy services in the conservatorship of Ryan Morris, Rowe said in the declaration. Jackson told him that, pursuant to a court order, his assignment would be to perform “relationship building services” among Ryan Morris, his adoptive mother, Spicer, Mukai and Moore.

“At the time, I asked Ms. Jackson several times for a copy of the order and any other background information that would be helpful, but she failed to provide this information to me,” he said.

Rowe was deposed on Oct. 8 by the biological family, and Krolikowski showed him the judge’s order “and the references to the many instances of abusive behavior inflicted by Spicer on Ryan,” the declaration says. “Despite my requests to Ms. Jackson to see the order, I had never seen these findings before, nor had I seen the actual directive from the court that Ryan was to visit with various persons in a ‘therapeutic setting.’ In my professional opinion, ‘visitation in a therapeutic setting’ is not the same as ‘relationship building’ (or psycho-therapy sessions), which was the instruction(s) I received from Ms. Jackson.”

Had Rowe known about the order and the actual directive from the court, he would have approached his assignment much differently, he said.

“(I)t was Spicer and Michelle that told me that Mukai, Moore, and even Mr. Krolikowski, were improperly using the legal process to abuse Ryan, but after reading the order, it appears to me that Moore (and his counsel, Mr. Krolikowski), were justified in proceeding to remove Spicer as Ryan’s conservator, and in fact, they prevailed.”

After reviewing the psychological evaluation that was ordered on Ryan, he came to understand  “that Ryan is easily influenced by others, and … I can see now that Spicer and possibly Michelle may have influenced Ryan’s negative attitudes, comments, and behaviors towards his biological family, including Mukai and Moore,” Rowe said. “I also now have a better understanding that much of the misinformation and negative comments I received about Mukai and Moore, were fed to me by Spicer and Michelle. … I was not given the full picture of Ryan’s situation by Ms. Jackson, Spicer or Michelle.”

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 Monica Mukai)

Rowe sent an August email to Jackson expressing concern that the Public Guardian’s Office was overstepping its role, attempting to influence clinical interventions and violating its duties. “I came to the conclusion that I was being used as a pawn by the Public Guardian’s Office to render findings and recommendations without having all of the information I needed to do so,” he said.

After Rowe challenged Jackson, he was told his services were no longer needed, he said. In an email to Jackson, he said he was concerned that her decision to terminate his services was not in Ryan Morris’ best interest, and that she lacked neutrality regarding Spicer and Morris.

An emailed response from Riverside County to the Southern California News Group didn’t directly address Rowe’s assertions.

The mission of the public guardian is to safeguard the lives of people who can’t care for themselves with the least possible restriction of their liberties, and it must also protect the privacy and confidentiality of people under conservatorship, said Riverside County Behavioral Health Director Dr. Matthew Chang.

“Every member of the Public Guardian Program takes this mission seriously and has worked hard to address new and familiar issues pertaining to the program. Public trust is crucial for comprehensive conservatorship, and accountability is a vital component of that trust.”

Petitions to take over conservatorship from the public guardian — from Spicer and Morris on one hand, and from Mukai and Moore on the other — are on hold until the Court of Appeal weighs in on a challenge to the order removing Spicer as conservator.

The biological family also asked the court for permission to visit with Ryan Morris even if he decided he didn’t want to, in an attempt to get past the fear instilled in him. Officials say the Public Guardian’s Office will continue to use its own discretion and honor Ryan Morris’ wishes on visitation.

Full Article & Source:

Could woman accused of murder be appointed disabled man’s guardian?