Florida Supreme Court to Judges: No Lobbying

Stung by public reaction to judges who lobbied state lawmakers into a $50 million courthouse many have dubbed a “Taj Mahal,” the Florida Supreme Court has established new rules that would muzzle individual judges who try to have their way with the Legislature.

And some judges are not happy. The state’s circuit court judges have formally asked the state’s highest court to rescind the rules and at least engage in a public discussion of rules that would constrain their right to speak out in public. Judges at the Fifth District Court of Appeal also have filed a formal objection to a provision that would establish term limits on chief judges.

The rules, approved by a sharply divided court in February, would prevent individual judges from taking their budget requests and suggestions for changing the law directly to lawmakers without first getting approval from the Supreme Court and administrative committees who oversee the budget.

In addition, the state’s highest court has imposed an 8-year term limit on the service of all chief judges and requires them to be selected on the basis of their managerial, administrative and leadership skills.

Justices Barbara Pariente, Jorge Labarga, Ricky Polston and James Perry voted for all of the rules while Chief Justice Charles Canady and Justice Peggy Quince concurred with part of the decision but objected to term limits. Justice Fred Lewis dissented from the entire opinion.

“The majority in many ways takes the court system backward to recreate circumstances similar to those found by the citizens of Florida to be unworkable and abusive over 40 years ago,” Lewis wrote.”

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Florida Supreme Court to Judges: No Lobbying

Former CCAAA Employee Sentenced for Stealing From Elderly Woman

A former employee of the Clearfield County Area Agency on Aging accused of taking thousands of dollars from an elderly woman pleaded guilty Tuesday during plea and sentencing court in Clearfield County.

Jodie Lorraine Yarger, 45, Brisbin, pleaded guilty to five counts each of forgery and theft by unlawful taking. She was sentenced to 60 days to one year in jail and four years consecutive probation. A condition of the plea agreement was that she pay $10,000 of the restitution prior to sentencing. She owes and additional $2,536. She is prohibited from being employed as a social worker.

The charges stem from incidents that occurred between Jan. 2005 and Sept. 2010. During this time Yarger was employed by the CCAAA as Director of Long Term Care Services. She was hired in Dec. 1999.

Prior to sentencing Judge Fredric J. Ammerman stated that he had received a letter from the victim’s children which “paints a pretty pathetic picture”. Yarger was trusted and she stole the victim’s money. What made it worse, Ammerman noted was that she was working for the CCAAA at the time.

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Former CCAAA Employee Sentenced for Stealing From Elderly Woman

Courts Look to Law to Prevent Fiduciary Theft

Chancery Courts in Harrison and Hinds County are following required safeguards to protect the assets of children and vulnerable adults because, they confirm, attorneys in their jurisdictions either stole or improperly spent millions of dollars entrusted to them.

In Gulfport, attorney Woodrow W. “Woody” Pringle III stole at least $2.4 million from accounts he managed for children and vulnerable adults, a forensic accounting shows. He spent some of the cash on a house in Windemere, Fla, where he lived with his third wife, and on travel expenses to and from Florida to Gulfport, according to the records.

Pringle committed suicide in December 2010 in a hotel room at the Orlando Ritz-Carlton, overdosing on alcohol and pain killers, after Harrison County Chancery Clerk John McAdams discovered the attorney had falsified bank records for a veteran’s guardianship account. A forensic accounting has since revealed the extent of his thievery from numerous accounts he oversaw.

In Jackson, attorney William J. Brown embezzled or misappropriated almost $1.7 million from a guardianship, a Chancery Court judge determined in March.

The two cases have one thing in common: Neither attorney was filing the annual accountings that state law requires for guardianships, conservatorships and estate accounts overseen by chancery court, court officials concede. Chancery clerks are responsible under state law for turning over a list each year of guardians and conservators who are delinquent in filing the accountings required by state law. Once judges have the list, they are supposed to demand the accountings and hold in contempt any account administrators who fail to produce them.

In the Pringle and Brown cases, attorneys also have noted, banks have in some cases failed to follow court orders that restrict spending of funds from the court-supervised accounts.

Full Article and Source:
Courts Look to Law to Prevent Another Pringle Incident

See Also:
Editorial – Trust Must Be Restored

Introducing the Administration for Community Living

“For too long, too many Americans have faced the impossible choice between moving to an institution or living at home without the long-term services and supports they need. The goal of the new Administration for Community Living will be to help people with disabilities and older Americans live productive, satisfying lives.”
– Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

All Americans – including people with disabilities and seniors – should be able to live at home with the supports they need, participating in communities that value their contributions. To help meet these needs, HHS is creating a new organization, the Administration for Community Living (ACL) with the goal of increasing access to community supports and full participation, while focusing attention and resources on the unique needs of older Americans and people with disabilities.

The ACL will include the efforts and achievements of the Administration on Aging, the Office on Disability and the Administration on Developmental Disabilities in a single agency, with enhanced policy and program support for both cross-cutting initiatives and efforts focused on the unique needs of individual groups such as children with developmental disabilities, adults with physical disabilities, or seniors, including seniors with Alzheimer’s.

Source:
Introducing the Administration for Community Living

TX: Ethics, Judicial Conduct Agencies Get Lawmaker’s Scrutiny

State lawmakers on Tuesday blasted the secrecy of a state agency that polices misconduct by Texas judges and seemed receptive to a proposal for more public disclosure and enforcement of ethics laws that govern legislators and other public officials.

The Sunset Advisory Commission did not formally vote on the recommended changes for the state Commission on Judicial Conduct or the Texas Ethics Commission. But panelists made it clear during a daylong public hearing at the Capitol that they are leaning toward reforms.

The 12-member commission, made up of five senators, five House members and two public members, periodically measures the performance of state agencies to determine whether they should continue operating or be merged or closed.

Texas Ethics Commission staff recommended strengthening the agency’s enforcement abilities, reducing penalties for minor paperwork mistakes and making more disclosure documents available to the public online.

Sunset commission chairman Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, at several points seemed to support many of the proposed changes, which were endorsed by a parade of government-watchdog advocates and citizens.

If the panel eventually supports the staff recommendations, the ethics commission could end up with its first-ever enforcement division and greater power to subpoena records to investigate complaints.

“We feel it’s in the public’s interest to have an open situation where there’s daylight all through the transactions we have,” said Tom Ramsay, a retired lawmaker from East Texas who chairs the ethics commission.

Even so, changing ethics laws at the Capitol has been difficult in the past. The commission was created two decades ago after a legislative influence-peddling scandal. No matter how much support reforms might seem to have at a meeting, approval can be derailed after lawmakers ponder whether they really want to give an agency more power to bust them for violations.

Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, questioned whether the changes might be misperceived by the public.

“Some of us are concerned that the watchdog groups are … going to holler that we’re watering down the ethics rules,” he said.

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Ethics, Judicial Conduct Agencies Get Lawmakers’ Scrutiny

Watch the Sunset Advisory Commission Hearing

Oklahoma: SB1304

Catheryn Koss, executive director of the Senior Law Resource Center, discusses Oklahoma laws related to guardianship.

Q: How would Senate Bill 1304 affect Oklahoma laws related to guardianship and durable powers of attorney?

A: This bill would clarify the relationship between a guardian and a person who has durable power of attorney. If it passes, if a guardian is ever appointed, any durable power of attorney that may have been in effect earlier would be automatically terminated.

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Business Q&A with Catheryn Koss

Judicial Conduct Unbecoming

It does not take a law degree or special knowledge of judicial ethics to know that handing out courthouse jobs to favored friends and relatives is wrong.

But that did not stop Luis Gonzalez, the top judge in the appellate division that covers Manhattan and the Bronx, from treating openings in his part of the court system as personal patronage. A state agency that polices judges’ conduct issued a highly critical report about Justice Gonzalez, yet he remains a presiding justice.

Justice Gonzalez joined the appellate court in 2002 and became the presiding justice in 2009. He quickly reverted to a clubby hiring process, increasing his control and returning to the practice of advertising nonattorney jobs only within the courthouse. His predecessor, the state’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, stopped that practice.

According to the report by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, in 2010 when an early-retirement program produced a slew of vacancies, almost all of the 25 replacements hired “got their jobs through word of mouth, because they had acquaintances, friends, relatives or other contacts at the appellate division.”

Among those hired, six had direct links to Justice Gonzales or his staff, including his ex-wife, who was hired at a higher salary than most other paralegals, nephews of his executive assistants who did not meet the listed qualifications for the positions and his secretary’s brother. Justice Gonzalez signed the papers approving each hire.

But that did not stop Luis Gonzalez, the top judge in the appellate division that covers Manhattan and the Bronx, from treating openings in his part of the court system as personal patronage. A state agency that polices judges’ conduct issued a highly critical report about Justice Gonzalez, yet he remains a presiding justice.

Justice Gonzalez joined the appellate court in 2002 and became the presiding justice in 2009. He quickly reverted to a clubby hiring process, increasing his control and returning to the practice of advertising nonattorney jobs only within the courthouse. His predecessor, the state’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, stopped that practice.

According to the report by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, in 2010 when an early-retirement program produced a slew of vacancies, almost all of the 25 replacements hired “got their jobs through word of mouth, because they had acquaintances, friends, relatives or other contacts at the appellate division.”

Among those hired, six had direct links to Justice Gonzales or his staff, including his ex-wife, who was hired at a higher salary than most other paralegals, nephews of his executive assistants who did not meet the listed qualifications for the positions and his secretary’s brother. Justice Gonzalez signed the papers approving each hire.

The commission said, rightly, that a system in which most administrative jobs are posted only in nonpublic rooms of the courthouse invites nepotism and favoritism. It also cheats the public of the services of highly qualified candidates from outside the court system.

Source:
Judicial Conduct Unbecoming

See Also:
System, Not Judge, is Blamed for Nepotism in Court Hiring

Judge Adds Safeguards After Franklin Case?

Ginger Franklin was in an Illinois rehabilitation facility nearly 300 miles from her Nashville home when in August 2008 a Davidson probate judge issued an emergency order taking away her rights to control her own life.

The order was issued by Judge David “Randy” Kennedy in response to a petition filed by Franklin’s aunt.

The aunt had been told by doctors that her niece’s injuries from falling down a flight of stairs were so serious she was likely to die or suffer permanent brain injuries, Franklin said.

It wasn’t until early September 2008 when she returned to Nashville, Franklin said, that she learned what had happened in her absence.

As soon as she stepped off the plane after her release from the Illinois facility, she said, she was met by a newly appointed conservator and taken to a group home.

When she asked why she wasn’t being taken to the Nashville condo she owned, “They told me you don’t have a home to go home to,” she said.

Court records show that Franklin lost her home and ended up on the hook for legal fees and other court-approved fees that ate up all but about $2,000 of her assets, including proceeds from the sale of her condo.

Franklin, 55, was released from the court-ordered conservatorship Dec. 2, 2010, when she presented evidence that she was competent and capable of managing her own affairs.

Upset at how her conservatorship was handled, she filed complaints with the Court of the Judiciary, the body tasked with investigating ethical complaints against judges, and with the Board of Professional Responsibility, which supervises ethical conduct of attorneys.

Just last week she received a letter from the Court of the Judiciary informing her that the investigation of her complaint had been completed.

The letter dated April 10 from Court of Judiciary attorney Patrick McHale stated that “appropriate action” had been taken, but it added that details of that action could not be released because of confidentiality provisions in state law.

Judge Kennedy said he also received a letter from the court informing him that the investigation has been closed. “I received no sanctions or disciplinary action, nor was any warranted,” he said.

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Judge Adds Safeguards After Case

Ginger Franklin Lost Her Home and Her Belongings Under a Conservatorship

Ginger Franklin lost her home and her belongings under a conservatorship
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1

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Ginger Franklin Lost Her Home Under a Conservatorship

Conservatorship Laws Vary State by State

The laws used to determine whether a person is mentally or physically incapacitated and needs to be placed in a court-ordered conservatorship vary from state to state.

In one state, a citizen who has developed, for example, Alzheimer’s disease can have his or her rights stripped away by a judge without being present or informed in advance, while in another state, the person would have the right not only to be present, but also to have a lawyer and demand a jury trial before being placed under the legal control of someone else.

The intent of the laws around conservatorship — when another person or entity is given the legal right to make decisions regarding one’s affairs — is to protect the vulnerable person and his or her assets.

The process is not uncommon, but a growing group of elderly advocates and attorneys has been alarmed over potential abuses in the system and has lobbied for model laws across the country that grant more rights to the individual and offer more protection.

Advocates hail ruling

A recent ruling by the state Supreme Court in Connecticut spelled out how important and serious a conservatorship can be.

The court found that placing a person in a conservatorship “is one of the most serious infringements on personal liberty and autonomy authorized by law.”

The ruling, being hailed by advocates for the elderly, concluded that attorneys appointed in conservatorship cases to represent a candidate for conservatorship are obliged to advocate for what that person wants and not to substitute their own judgment of what is best for the client.

Full Article and Source:
Conservatorship Laws Vary by State

See Also:
Reform of Unlawful and Abusive Guardianships and Conservatorships and Abuse by Courts and Fiduciaries

The Daniel Gross Decision: Standing Up for the Elderly and Infirm