4 ms·
I think the article does in fact explain how this could have happened: 1) The professional guardian moved for an emergency ex parte hearing, without notificat
by bzbarsky 9y ago
I think the article does in fact explain how this could have happened:
1) The professional guardian moved for an emergency ex parte hearing, without notification to family members, getting to speak to the court first, and unopposed.
2) The professional guardian mentioned the family members in her court filings, and indicated they were unfit for various reasons.
3) The courts didn't really check the professional guardian's claims.
Those seem like facts, assuming the article can be trusted. What follows are my conjectures based on those facts:
4) The judge is in on it, fundamentally. At the very least, he thinks professional guardians are just a better idea than family members, and hence he was just looking for justification to ignore the preference-for-bloodline statute.
5) Item #3 is a consequence of #4 to some extent. The judge has no real incentive to double-check things here, and it's extra work, so why do it? The resulting lack of consequences described in the article indicates that this was a rational call on the judge's part, as far as that goes.
6) Item #2 gives cover to the judge to act on the predisposition I describe in item #4.
- ryandrake 9y agoRe your point #4: From the article: "Parks drove a Pontiac G-6 convertible with a license plate that read “crtgrdn,” for “court guardian.” In the past twelve years, she had been a guardian for some four hundred wards of the court." ... "Norheim awarded a guardianship to Parks, on average, nearly once a week. She had up to a hundred wards at a time. “I love April Parks,” he said at one hearing" I would be shocked if this guy isn't getting some kind of payment from Ms. Parks.
- bzbarsky 9y agoI have to agree that my gut feeling is that the judge is on the take here. But there's no really hard evidence for that in the article, and I really hope not in reality, because otherwise just reshuffling the judge around to kids' cases is a complete travesty. In any case, unfortunately all that's important for my #4 is that the judge be predisposed towards professional guardians, for whatever reason.
- soundwave106 9y agoThanks for the information, I believe you are correct. Further Googling indicated that up until 2015, guardians in Nevada had to be in-state residents. (http://borglawgroup.com/new-adult-guardianship-laws-may-affect-existing-estate-plans/ http://borglawgroup.com/new-adult-guardianship-laws-may-affe...). This is a pretty nasty restriction in my opinion in today's world, and probably accounted for at least some of the "disqualifications". At least Florida law specifically qualifies non-residents that are related! It seems like this story was pretty big in Las Vegas around 2015, and it did lead to reform attempts at the state level (including the above reform). Obviously you can't change the past, but I'm curious if any of this has done any good for the future. (https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/nevada-legislature-looks-to-reform-guardian-program/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/n...). At least five guardians are in legal trouble now over this, four of them (including Parks) for running a racket (http://www.ktnv.com/news/contact-13/guardianship-crimes-occurred-in-courtroom http://www.ktnv.com/news/contact-13/guardianship-crimes-occu...). Another guardian was arrested for stealing from a client in 2013 (http://www.fox5vegas.com/story/23641602/court-appointed-guardian-accused-of-stealing-from-clients http://www.fox5vegas.com/story/23641602/court-appointed-guar...). Of course, at a government level, all that happens is career shuffling...