Personal Liberty Doesn’t Have an Expiration Date, Neither Does Justice
Adult guardianship needs reform desperately to be consistent with our United States’ constitutional rights and a strengths-based approach to our future self.
Testimony provided before the New York State Senate Guardianship Round Table Public Hearing on Thursday, August 25, 2022, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm, at 250 Broadway, New York City.
Pertinent to the subject of the hearing, I am a recipient of The Isabella Award (for guardianship) by the National College of Probate Judges; a keynote speaker countrywide at dozens of conferences, including the National Guardianship Association conference; a witness who testified about guardianship before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging; and a concerned person who acted against abuse with the help of a guardianship.
Introduction —
Good afternoon, Senator Borrello (57th District), Senator Palumbo (1st District), and all here today. Thank you for inviting me to testify on guardianship.
My name is Philip C. Marshall. I am founder of Beyond Brooke, a cause-based campaign advocating for elder justice.
My testimony is informed by hard-learned experience. My grandmother was Brooke Astor—New York City philanthropist, president of the Vincent Astor Foundation for four decades, and a victim of elder abuse.
In concert with many other concerned persons, I helped save my grandmother from abuse by my father and other perpetrators. I petitioned the New York Supreme Court for a guardianship that was awarded and that allowed my grandmother to spend her last days as she wished — in her country house, with loved ones, and free from fear.
Guardianship helped save my grandmother.
But, as I have learned in the past 15 years, guardianship needs reform, desperately. Guardianship abuse and exploitation is a social harm, an epidemic, and criminal.
Guardianship —
Guardianship reform has been advanced by robust research, evidence-informed policy, tools and techniques, and legislation.
But, too frequently, the letter and spirit of the law are not practiced in guardianship proceedings, oversight, and accountability. Untrustworthy guardians know this, to their advantage.
Adult Americans’ constitutional rights are violated when due process, equal protection, and freedom of expression and association are deficient or denied in guardianship.
How can this happen? Money, for two reasons.
- A purported lack of funding to protect and serve faithfully our most vulnerable adult citizens entrusted with the state’s care and fiduciary duty.
- The “availability” of trillions of dollars of older citizen’s life savings and entitlements — all at risk.
Close connections and even collaboration among actors in the court system, which appears to be obscured intentionally by insufficient data and accountability, allows some guardianships to be employed as a weapon and a shield.
Such guardianships are used to exploit older citizens and compromise their self worth, net worth, and lives.
An alarming number of guardianship abuse and exploitation cases appear to be state-sanctioned — whether by omission, or commission, or collusion, or all three.
Solutions —
Here are two of several solutions to be submitted to you in my written testimony.
- Stop the bleeding. Investigate and prosecute guardianship abuse and exploitation for what they are: fraud, white-collar crime, even racketeering.
- Refer to the recommendations adopted at the Fourth National Guardianship Summit: Maximizing Autonomy and Ensuring Accountability. The summit was organized by the National Guardianship Network and hosted by Syracuse University College of Law and Syracuse Law Review (2021). Select summit recommendations can be amended for inclusion in state legislation. In the language, replace any elective “should” and “must” with a mandated “shall” and include provisions (with sanctions) that hold the courts responsible for their action or inaction.
New York state —
From Dunkirk to Montauk, New York State is not just a geographic and political state. As a state, as a condition, it’s a condition of humanity.
New York leads the way, nationwide, in many arenas of elder justice.
May New York State continue to pass acts that empower all citizens to act against injustice and to “age with dignity and independence.”
May our personal, lifelong liberty light and lead New York—and, by example, all America.
Thank you.
#NYSenate #BeyondBrooke #GuardianshipAbuse #ElderAbuse #Health #Wealth #OurFutureSelf
