Texas Responses to Petition to Stop Elder Abuse and Guardianship Abuse

Phyllis Winn               Imagine yourself in the place of these elderly and incapacitated persons. We will all be old one day, and need special care, respect, and consideration. We will be vulnerable to those who make their living sucking the life out of us with their greed and calousness. We will need to be protected, as so many need this protection today. Our constitution should already cover this, but apparently we need more. The family's bill of rights would fend off the wolves and dry up their source of ill-gotten gain.

Manon Carr                 Abuse of the elderly is another crime that I can't stand to hear about. Let's help them get the protection they deserve.

Gayla Smith                As a 62 y/o Grad student, in Gerontology, the study of aging, I must say that this is so far past due, it's not funny. It's disgusting.

Debby L.  Salinas Valdez            Hi, I am pleased to sign the petition as a parent of a young adult with disabilities who one day will require guardianship.  I am also an advocate in the State of Texas working with many families who have been affected by Guardianship Abuse.  We have addressed our concerns to our Senate Jurisprudence Committee and our Lt. Governor's office.  We have been told that there will be an interim study on the Guardianship Abuse in the State of Texas coming up in spring of 2010.  I would like to see that legislation would address the application process of the filing of guardianship.  I believe that legislation in Guardianship should include that all applications for guardianship should require successor guardians listed to the application, it should also be a requirement that the Probate Courts are accountable to contact the successor guardians on the applications by certified mail and should be required to prove that they have made any and all contacts for successor guardians to take guardianship prior to the Courts making the decisions on revoking and placing the incapacitated into the custody of the state.  Also, according to the Texas Probate Code, a guardian may WILL their incapacitated loved one to a successor guardian.  However, at this time, the successor guardian will also have to apply to become a guardian before the courts.  The judge still has the opportunity to make the final decision on the successor guardian.  I believe that this is also a violation of our Constitutional Rights even after we are dead, if the court has the authority to ignore our choice as written in our LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.  I along with many Texas famillies are working effortlessly to improve our protections by the Constitution and our civil rights to end the Guardianship Abuse in our state.  I support this National mission along with all of you.

phil sef      How is it that in America, the land of the free, that people can have their constitutional rights striped of them leaving them with no right to their own property while it is stripped from them by greedy lawyers and guardians and where the judges let it happen... and they do not even have the right to a lawyer or to demand justice.

JAMES LUECK             I live with my daughter and I am lucky to do so. I don't know where they would have put me if I had not had a place to go. I'm 57 and disabled and living on SSI. This is an issue I think about a lot.

Stephen Ring              I'm in shock at the way our great system has totally failed when it comes to elder abuse and guardianship system abuse.  It has become a feeding ground for crooked professionals preying on the innocent.  A black eye for all Americans that needs to be fixed.  There are little to no checks and balances... no wonder it doesn't work.

Ricky Ring                    It is wrong to abuse the elderly and exploit their estate and then on top of that abuse and eploit money from the family member who is only trying to help the elderly person as the guardian.  We need to fix this problem.

Anonymous                Many articles and studies have found over the past 20 years that Guardianships often deny citizens their constitutional rights under The Fourteenth Amendment of to their property and due process under the law.

The stories we hear everyday make that message ring true for many of us who have been the eyewitness and secondary victims of guardianship abuse.

jackie conaway          my cousin daughter is always screaming @ her mother and calling her names. she recently spent time in jail for phisical violence . she is now out and my wife and i think she is up to her old tricks again. was over there yesterday and she was ranting and cusing her mother in the yard. i was looking on  line for ways to help my cousin get free of her abuser

Victoria Kelly              Please protect these wonderful people!

Kath Gohman             Please take a minute to share why you believe change is needed.

Lisa Ring   PLEASE take a minutoe to read this petition and research the issue of elderly abuse and gaurdianship system. My mother tried to save the life of her childhood "mom" and ended up caught in the corrupt gaurdianship court system. She tried to end the abuse of a 92 year old woman, and in the process became a victim herself. She lost thousands, as the elderly woman also lost her life savings. We MUST address the issue at hand. It can no longer be ignored. Please help us stop it now before you and your loved ones fall victim to the Gaurdianhip system, or elderly abuse.

Sheryl Ware                Something needs to be done about this. Elderly people deserve to be with their families and why to attorneys and judges get away with destroying families?

Latifa Ring                    THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS SIGNED THIS PETITION !

VERY DAY I ASK MYSELF THIS QUESTION … WHY CAN YOU GET A POWER OF ATTORNEY FOR PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR IN A COUPLE OF DAYS BUT GETTING A GUARDIANSHIP WITH ALMOST THE SAME POWERS CAN COST TENS IF NOT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ?  

WE MUST DEMAND CHANGE!  NO ONE SHOULD BE DECLARED INCOMPETENT JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE OLD AND HAVE MONEY.
GOD HELP THE ELDERLY AND VULNERABLE IN AMERICA’S STATE COURTS IF SOMETHING IS NOT DONE TO STOP GROSSLY INJUST SYSTEM THAT ROBS THEIR ESTATES AND THEIR LIVES AND DESTROYS THEIR FAMILIES. I’M SURE NONE OF THEM EVER PLANNED FOR THIS OUTCOME AS THEY PUT THEIR PENNIES AWAY OVER THE YEARS.

Patricia Pondoff        The denial of the Wards Civil and Constitutional Rights has got to stop. The perjury in these cases need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law. The Courts need to oversee these guardianships other than just signing an order approving everything. The Attorneys who are being paid with County Funds should be accountable to the people who are the tax-payers. We are the next generation to fall victim to guardianship.  Did you work to leave your estate to your loved ones or to the Attorneys and Courts? LET'S MAKE THE CHANGE TOGETHER!

Elder Abuse Victims Advocates                 We must do something about this silent crime in America. Why is our administration and why are our leaders so silent on this issue? It is time for the People to take a stand and we will have to educate ourselves and each others to avoid these systems that say they will protect the vulnerable but are in reality harming not only the weak and the sick and the disabled but are being used to destroy their lives and tear apart families.

This is a crime and it is not just happening in our communities. It is happening in and through our courts by greedy perpetrators who see this as a way to enrich themselves and their organizations off the back of human beings who rights have been stripped of them and who do not even have the right to know what is being done with their lives, their homes, their prized possessions or their money.

How can this happen in America?

All of the folks in Washington who could stop this will be old one day or will have a loved one who gets old one day and could become a victim of this crime and when that happens they will ask WHY?

Please for the sake of your own loved ones and your own future DO SOMETHING TODAY to stop this shameful crime against the elderly, the disabled and against their families.

anonymous                 We must reform this system that does not benefit the elderly and depletes public funds. There must be more done to support family members being guardians and quit making it so difficult just to be there and to help your aging loved one.

I wonder how the people who advocate guardianships and the lawyers, guardians, judges and lawmakers who thing this is such a good system would like it if one day they were put into a guardianship where they have no say over their lives, their money or their property and where their families and children would suffer such pain watching them suffer and the hands of a stranger without any power to help them or any say on what happened to them. I wonder if they think of this because it could happen to them and it could happen to anyone of us.

This is nothing more than living probate where a person is declared civilly dead with all their rights taken from them while they are still physically alive.

Who came up with this terrible system that allows a human being in America to lose their birthright (the right to self determination and the right to property).

Petition to Stop Elder Abuse and Guardianship Abuse

Texas Supporters

Rick Pierce

Peter S. Ring

Kathryn Seidel

Kathryn Seidel

Alicia McConnell

Gonzalo Sanchez

Jacqueline Nugent

Maria Isabel

Ernest Johnson

Matsi Yasei

Edna Griggs

Terrie Williams

Barbara Campbell

Laura Ruede

Lady Xanadu Foster

DAVID DEBRA

LaJana Potter

Barbara Butler

Maggie Ward

Pam Rhia Steele

Larry D. Grazier

Lilac Alfke

Matthews Thomas

Kim Manire

Jean Adams

Frankie Fowler

Michael Walker

ann hubener

Annette Byrd

Phyllis Dunavent