Key Issues for Reform

The first is making it MORE DIFFICULT to conserve someone. Conserved parties lose their constitutional rights - the right to vote, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the right to legal representation of their choice and more. Even the most afflicted person is usually able to make choices about where they want to live, what they eat, what they wear, who they see... Taking away these rights should not be taken as lightly as it is. It should be one of the most difficult things to do. Since Guardianship is a matter of removal of constitutional rights, it follows that Guardianship should be the jurisdiction of Federal courts. This is key! It takes the net out of the water.

Again, making it MORE DIFFICULT to accomplish and EASIER TO GET OUT OF should be the focus. It would get many of us out of the current net we are currently caught in.

The second issue is one of family. Third party Guardianships destroy families. This should almost NEVER be allowed. As far as I'm concerned, if a Guardianship needs to be placed forced on someone, a bad family guardian is still better than the best 3rd party guardian. The law is SUPPOSED to consider family members first but instead uses family disagreements as a tool to destroy and pillage the estate of the ward. Changing the law to make this mandatory would go a long way. Ideally, there would have to be some verifiable abuse required in order to preclude a member of the family from being appointed.

The third issue is making Third Party Guardianship a nonprofit agency with a cap on fees. I believe the cap for Public Guardians is 1.9% of the estate per year. Making this amount uniform removes most of the "chum" from the water and attract fewer sharks to a tank where there is little or no profit!"

Written by a NASGA member

Outmoded Rules

Each year, thousands of children taken from troubled homes are eventually placed with a parent or close relative in another state, often for eventual adoption. Most of the transfers take months and some take more than a year because of what experts say are outmoded rules.

Such transfers are governed by the little-known Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children. The pact, adopted decades ago as law by every state, was designed to protect foster children from unsafe placements, but it is being challenged by many experts as inflicting unnecessary emotional harm on children, and for not requiring the court oversight that is normal in other custody cases.

Under the pact, the “sending” state, where the children live, must formally ask the “receiving” state to evaluate prospective guardians and visit their homes. Then the receiving state must carry out the evaluation and report back. The pact imposes no deadlines, and overburdened agencies may take months to send the initial request or to make a home visit. And it affords no right of courtroom appeal for the sending state or the relative when a social worker rejects a prospective guardian.

Vivek S. Sankaran, a law professor with the Child Advocacy Law Clinic at the University of Michigan : “Kids are unnecessarily remaining in overtaxed foster systems, when there are relatives who are ready and willing to take them immediately.”

Full Article and Source:
Waits Plague Transfers of Children to Relatives’ Care

Probate and Identity Theft

A News Five Investigation uncovered thousands of Social Security numbers, birthdays and signatures published on the Mobile County Probate Court's website, and Probate Judge Don Davis says there is nothing he can do about it.

WKRG.com Video

Source:
Lawmakers Failed To Protect Your Identity

"Current Alabama law does not permit a probate judge, anywhere in the state of Alabama, to redact information off a document," said Davis, who has spent the last two years working with lawmakers to address the issue. Davis says the Alabama House of Representatives passed a bill to allow Probate Judges to delete private information, but the measure failed in the Senate.

WKRG.com Video

Source:
Private Information Is Public Record

Probate Judge and Partner

A lawyer trying to drum up business for his law firm online touted the fact that his firm includes a Connecticut probate judge.

A real estate investment firm looking for property to buy in probate courts in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey posted an ad on a professional networking site looking for probate attorneys. Micky Fox, a law partner of Brookfield Probate Judge Joseph Secola, responded to the site's ad: "My partner, Joseph Secola is not only a Probate Judge in Brookfield, CT, but ihe (sic) is also licensed in New York."

The judge responded: "complete and total mistake, his partner, Fox, should have checked with him first." "He doesn't understand the ethical restrictions I'm under," and "I don't even put on my letterhead that I'm a probate judge."

The probate court administrator said he forwarded the complaint to an ethics committee made up of probate judges.

Full Article and Source:
Actions Of Probate Judge's Law Partner Prompt Ethics Complaint

See also:
Connecticut Probate Judges

Reforming Foster Care

H.R. 6307, the Fostering Connections to Success Act, was passed last week by the House. This bill is a strong first step in reforming the foster care system, and it includes provisions supporting kinship caregivers.

The bill includes the three core elements of the bill, H.R. 2188, the Kinship Caregiver Support Act.
1) it allows states to use federal funds to support family caregivers raising relatives in the foster care system;

2) it provides funding to establish kinship navigator programs;

3) it requires notification of relatives when a child enters the foster care system.

Research clearly shows that kinship foster care families are safer, more stable placements that are more likely to keep children connected with their siblings and communities than non-relative placements.

In Illinois, studies projected a savings of approximately $48 million over ten years. Federal financial assistance currently is available to foster and adoptive families. Only a few states receive a waiver to provide such aid to kinship caregivers. Illinois enjoys such a waiver, which currently serves over 6,000 children statewide. H.R. 6307 removes this roadblock for all the states and offers an important path to permanency. The bill also facilitates kinship care foster placements by requiring states to notify grandparents and other adult relatives when a child is removed from custody of a parent.

Full Article and Source:
DAVIS: Advancing kinship care

See also:
Kinship Care vs. Foster Care

Foster Care Legislation

Unsealing Court Records

Last year, an award-winning Review-Journal investigative series, UNDER WRAPS: The case of the missing suits - Nevada judges claim the right to seal lawsuits from view, leaving public in the dark found that judges had hidden more than 100 cases from the public. Judges also sealed their own identities. The newspaper's investigation determined that most of the cases were sealed solely to spare the wealthy and well-known, many of them lawyers, from perceived embarrassment.

Some of the cases include:

* The State Bar of Nevada named as a co-defendant in a lawsuit filed by a man serving a life sentence in prison. The bar had requested that the case be sealed.

*A lawsuit that accused a Catholic priest of bilking more than $200,000 from an elderly parishioner alleged that a second priest coached the victim before her testimony was taken in a deposition, and that the accused priest was allowed to be present during her deposition. The Diocese of Las Vegas requested that the lawsuit be sealed.

In response to the articles, the Nevada Supreme Court took less than a year to enact new rules limiting the sealing of civil cases.

Previously, District Court judges exercised unlimited discretion in sealing lawsuits. The new standards require jurists to hear a compelling public argument for privacy and enter a record of the justification for sealing a case, including all parties involved.

Full Article and Source:
EDITORIAL: Opening sealed lawsuits

Former Ward Files Suit

Rita Hunter, Jasper County public administrator, her attorney and an area physician are named in a lawsuit filed in Jasper County Circuit Court.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday on behalf of Emma France, stems from actions that made France a ward of the public administrator.

In addition to Hunter, it names John Podleski, the public administrator’s attorney; Crandall and Podleski, his law firm; and Stephen Bazzano, the physician who signed the medical certificate submitted in court action that declared France incapacitated and disabled. The suit seeks judgment of at least $1 million on each of the three counts.

Full Article and Source:
Administrator, lawyer, doctor named in lawsuit by former ward

See also:
Undrafted Medical Certificate

France is Released

Mother and Daughter File Suit

An Alleged Kidnapping


Rita Hunter is a registered with National Guardianship Association

Attorney Ordered to Repay

Attorney Emani Taylor apparently was hoping to get $853,000 for three years of work as a guardian for a former New York judge.

Instead, the New York lawyer got a lecture on legal ethics from Acting Supreme Court Justice Michael Ambrosio and a $403,000 surcharge for improper payments she had earlier made to herself from selling real estate owned by former Civil Court Judge John Phillips.

About half of the $403,000 involved a $197,000 payment that Taylor admittedly made to herself while serving as Phillips' guardian from nearly $700,000 in proceeds from the sale of real estate owned by Philips.

Taylor was also ordered to repay a $52,000 brokerage commission that she paid herself in the sale of the property that brought in the $700,000, as well as another $120,000 that she spent repairing a different Phillips property.

Full Article and Source:
No $853K Guardian Payday for N.Y. Lawyer; Also Hit With $403K Surcharge

Taylor was suspended late last year from the practice of law by the Appellate Division, 1st Department

See also:
The Kung-Fu Judge

Break The Silence Campaign

Governor Rod R. Blagojevich launched the fourth annual statewide "Break the Silence" campaign and proclaimed July as Elder Abuse Awareness Month in Illinois.

The full text of the Governor's proclamation follows:

WHEREAS, according to the Illinois Department on Aging, between four and five percent of persons in the United States, aged sixty and older are subject to some form of mistreatment or abuse, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as financial exploitation and neglect of basic care needs; and

WHEREAS, Illinois has approximately two million citizens over the age of sixty, meaning that as many as 80,000 Illinois seniors could currently be suffering from some form of abuse; and

WHEREAS, it is the mission of the Illinois Department on Aging and its network of service providers to increase public awareness of this plight against our most vulnerable elderly; and to promote increased reporting of elder abuse; and

WHEREAS, it is essential that the citizens of Illinois recognize the signs of abuse, neglect and exploitation and report suspicions of abuse; and

WHEREAS, it is imperative that each community in Illinois refuses to tolerate this offense against our older citizens by creating greater awareness of the prevalence and severity of elder abuse in hopes of eradicating it from society:

THEREFORE, I, Rod R. Blagojevich, Governor of the State of Illinois, do hereby proclaim July 2008 as ELDER ABUSE AWARENESS MONTH in Illinois, and encourage all citizens to recognize this crisis and join in working toward its prevention.

The "Break the Silence" campaign includes outreach efforts such as billboards and mass-transit advertisements, public service announcements and senior community fairs to increase awareness and visibility of this important issue.

More Information:
Gov. Blagojevich launches "Break the Silence" Campaign to increase awareness about Elder Abuse - Proclaims July Elder Abuse Awareness Month in Illinois