The first initiative, launched by the Michigan Supreme Court in 1998, resulted in a sweeping law that was supposed to protect elders and other vulnerable adults from unnecessarily losing control over their lives and finances. A second task force, created by then-Governor Jennifer Granholm in 2007, made further recommendations. But even with these good-faith efforts, complaints and abuses remain widespread.

Michigan’s new Elder Abuse Task Force is made up of representatives from more than 30 different entities. Each has an impact on anything from patient care to the legal and financial details of vulnerable adults’ lives. Participating organizations include the Elder Law Justice Initiative, the Health Care Association of America, and the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police. Bankers are represented, as are prosecuting attorneys. State and national legislators are also on board.

While Attorney General Nessel is the group’s chair, Assistant Attorney General Scott Teter will coordinate the task force’s efforts. Last year, former Attorney General Bill Scheutte named Teter as division chief of the new Child, Elder & Family Financial Crimes Division, which has since prosecuted several individuals for financial crimes against Michigan’s elderly citizens.

While working to get justice for vulnerable adults who have had their money stolen or misused, Teter has seen firsthand the horrors that many older adults in Michigan face.

“We've seen people who were left in dirty diapers for two weeks, who literally did not get moved from the couch that they were on for two weeks—and were stuck there in a diaper,” he said.

According to Teter, “the new task force is a step back, more of a bird’s eye view” to evaluate the entire system that is tasked with guarding and protecting the state’s vulnerable adults. Teter added that his office has “certainly heard lots of complaints” about different parts of the system, from (and about) prosecutors, Adult Protective Services, guardians and conservators.

Currently, Michigan doesn’t have specific laws that single out senior citizens for protection; instead, existing laws are supposed to protect all adults facing impairments that affect their ability to control their daily lives.

Both Teter and Alison Hirschel, the director and managing attorney of the nonprofit Michigan Elder Justice Initiative, agree that one of the new task force’s first priorities will be to identify which parts of current state law aren’t being properly implemented and enforced.

“We pulled the report that was done in 1998 by the (Michigan) Supreme Court on guardianships and conservatorships,” Teter told Daily Kos. That 1998 effort resulted in the passage of Michigan’s Estates and Protected Individuals Code (EPIC), which provides guidelines for probate courts when determining whether or not a vulnerable adult should be assigned a guardian.

Shockingly, the state’s probate courts are one of the main arenas where it seems that laws protecting vulnerable adults are often being ignored.

Probate courts theoretically provide a variety of protections to vulnerable adults who are alleged to be incapacitated. The adult in question is supposed to be present at hearings about their case if at all possible, even if that requires relocating the hearing to where the adult resides. Medical testimony is supposed to be part of every hearing, so the court can make an educated determination about whether or not a guardian is even necessary.

Courts are also supposed to give priority to relatives and friends, and take powers of attorney into account when determining the level of supervision an elderly person or other vulnerable adult needs. Full guardianships—which take away a vulnerable adult’s ability to make their own decisions about every single facet of their lives—are supposed to be a last resort, and put in place only in cases where a person is completely incapable of making such decisions on their own.

The reality, though, is all too frequently different. Thanks to factors including overcrowded dockets and underfunding, said Hirschel, “the courts often appoint professional guardians with whom they are familiar, rather than a vulnerable adult’s friends or family members.”

Also, despite EPIC’s guidelines, frequently no one is in the courtroom representing a vulnerable adult— including the adult themselves—while these vital decisions are being made about their lives. “It’s much easier, when only one side is present in the courtroom, for the court to just appoint a guardian,” Hirschel explained.

Hirschel added an important caveat: “We have virtually no data on guardianships,” she said, adding that different probate courts function differently. At the same time, “one piece of data we have is really striking. Last year, more than ten thousand guardianship petitions were granted, and fewer than 150 were denied. One of the primary things we need to look at is: Why do we have so many guardianships, and why is this necessary?”

“The task force will be collecting the data so we can be sure the system is functioning the way it’s supposed to,” Hirschel added.

The group will also use the recommendations from the 2007 task force created by former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

“In the past there haven’t been a lot people identifying the ways the laws are ignored or not followed,” said Hirschel. “This task force is naming the concerns we see in our office every week, but that people haven’t been talking about with any sense of urgency.”

“Part of this task force will be to review what is working and what areas are still not working,” Teter said, and to determine how best to fix the system. He added that the task force will be looking at everything from problems in the state’s probate courts to ways to better protect elderly and other vulnerable adults from relatives who either don’t have the elder’s best interests at heart, or may simply not know how best to care for them.

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As problems are identified, Teter said, the task force will try to determine how to solve each one. Those problems could include supervision and support of relatives caring for an at-risk adult, fixes to the guardianship system, and providing additional training or oversight of the state’s probate courts. “Is that a legislative fix, or is it a training issue, or is it a resource issue? Why, when they thought they had solved these problems in 2000 and in 2007, do we still have all kinds of complaints?”

In addition to reviews and recommendations, investigations and even prosecutions may also be on the table—help that will be coming too late for Mimi Brun, who finally rescued her mother Virginia “Jean” Wahab from an Oakland County probate court-appointed guardian last summer … after a two-year battle.

Wahab and Brun’s ordeal began in 2016, when, after falling in her home, Wahab was placed with Lourdes Senior Community in Waterford for rehabilitation, for what was supposed to be a short stay. Instead, after a dispute over a past due balance, Lourdes convinced probate judge Linda Hallmark to appoint a total stranger, Jon Munger, as Wahab’s guardian—despite the fact that Wahab had given Brun her power of attorney.

During the conflict that followed, Munger refused to allow Brun to visit her mother, and even attempted to take and sell Wahab’s home.

Brun was also actually injured when the wheelchair holding her mother was snatched away during a break in a hearing where Brun was begging to be allowed to visit Wahab. At this point, Munger and Lourdes had kept mother and daughter apart for two years.

According to journalist Gretchen Rachel Hammond, who originally reported Wahab and Brun’s story last June in Tablet magazine, and in a subsequent July report on Daily Kos, Brun was finally able to secure a court order terminating Munger’s guardianship in August.

During depositions, Hammond said that Munger admitted that, among other things, he didn’t even know Wahab’s physical or mental condition—let alone whether she ever needed his services in the first place. “I was watching (Judge) Hallmark’s head going into her hands,” Hammond said.

Michigan currently has no laws requiring professional training or certification for guardians. Nor does the state regulate how many cases a single guardian is allowed to take. This can lead to situations where court-appointed guardians are juggling dozens, or even hundreds, of individual wards.

Hammond, who is now wrapping up an eight-month investigation into what she said are “systemic problems” with Oakland County’s probate court system, said that Wahab and Brun’s ordeal “ended up about as happily as it could have”: Wahab is now home with her daughter. However, Hammond also expressed concern that the new task force’s work may not go far enough.

“If I’d been at the press conference (announcing the new task force) I would have said there’s clearly a problem,” Hammond said. “Not just in Oakland County, but also in Wayne, Washtenaw, and Macomb—I’m getting calls from all over. You’ve not only got to talk about and address the issues, but also investigate what’s been happening the past 30 years. There’s no accountability. These probate courts are running wild.”

Attorney General Nessel’s spokesperson, Kelly Ross-McKinney, told Daily Kos that investigations and prosecutions are also on the table. “Absolutely we will be investigating, and if that leads to prosecutions, we will do it. We will be looking at anything and everything,” she said.

While Michigan officials are looking—yet again—at the issues affecting them, senior citizens and other vulnerable adults who are being victimized by the current system can only hope that, this time, the people in power finally get it right—or at least improve the odds that vulnerable adults won’t be harmed by those entrusted with their care.

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