Britney Spears and Conservatorship Issues: Right to Counsel in Massachusetts or Elsewhere?
Raquel Maria Dillon, For The Associated Press, writes: "An attorney who claims to represent Britney Spears has filed papers to move her conservatorship case from the Los Angeles County Superior Court to federal court..." The attorney writes that Spears has not "received the benefit of a single hearing before the court," and "is being confined by the conservator to the private prison of her own home," and "raises the legal issue of whether an adult child may be subjected by her parents [her conservators] to their complete and total control in violation of her civil rights." Dillon writes, "Legal experts were doubtful that Eardley's bid to remove the case to federal court would succeed."
"Anyone who's under a conservatorship can argue that they've lost their civil rights," said Peter Tiersma, a law professor who teaches trusts and wills at Loyola Law School. That's what a conservatorship does, it takes away some of your rights. If the federal court were to take jurisdiction of the Spears case, said Tiersma, that would mean that anyone under a conservatorship could do this, and that's a loophole you could drive a truck through. But what about those wrongly under conservatorship? This is not a question addressed to Ms. Spear's matter (I'm not familiar with the facts or the issues in this case), but rather in general? How do wards regain their freedom from unscrupulous conservators? Wards arguably lack the mental capacity to hire an attorney. But our system is admittedly imperfect as demonstrated by proof of the wrongly convicted in criminal matters. Should every ward be afforded the right to independent counsel or shouldn't they? What are the limits? Who pays? Who decides? How often should a case be reviewed? Should it be reviewed by the same person each time or varied?
Ours is an imperfect and at times overburdened system, the answers often vary from place to place and can be influenced by your advocate. People with their own biases and beliefs are making these decisions daily (I believe most rightly so). But might some be in error? If one's freedom is being constrained by the state, might it be a federal issue, but one today's society can't afford or administer?
