http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/13/courts_strip_elders_of_their_independence/At 73, Cromwell is one of hundreds of forgotten docket numbers in Massachusetts probate and family courts, where judges routinely fast-track infirm elders into the care of guardians, often with little evidence to justify such wrenching decisions.
Cromwell, after a broken ankle and a brief rehab in early 2006, had expected to go home. But on the say-so from the nursing home's doctor - a short, nearly illegible diagnosis - a judge decreed that Cromwell was mentally ill and handed all of her decision-making to a guardian. Cromwell lost all power over her own life, with no opportunity to object, no right to have a lawyer represent her, no chance to even be in the courtroom.
Three months later, the same judge, E. Chouteau Merrill, made the guardianship permanent - in a two-minute hearing in which the judge asked not a single question. </snip>
My brothers and sister did this with my father. Took his rights away against his will. Put him in homes. Sold his house. Eventually he stopped eating and died. They said they had doctor notes on incompetence. They took him for tests to prove he was not capable. He asked for my help but I could not fight my rich siblings. I told him he needed to prove he was competent, he needed his own lawyer, doctors, and other professionals to testify and work for him. He got a good lawyer but it was already too late. Once they put you in those homes, they drug you to be able to manage you. If you object to anything, you are analyzed and drugged. Those drugs and dosages never match and the next thing you know the person has a stroke. It becomes a self-fulling prophecy.
He would have been much happier elsewhere - even if he was not eating right and lived in a mess - he was happy with his mess. He had been that way for over 40 years but they used the same traits he had displayed for years and used them as evidence.