Justice for 13 Years! by Luke Gibbons Jr. [Page

It’s Britney *****! The Pop Princess, The Global Icon…The Prisoner Who Had No Access to Justice for 13 Years!

By Luke Gibbons, LL.B (Dub.) (aur.num.), BCL (Oxon) (Dist.) (Hon. Sch.), PhD Candidate (Dub.)

Imagine being 39 years old, living with no personal freedom, zero control over your everyday life, someone else making important decisions about your healthcare, your money, the amount of work you do, with no capacity” to hire your own lawyer and gain access to the courts, no access to justice!

This is the life popstar Britney Spears has lived since 2008 when she was placed involuntarily under a court ordered ‘temporary’ conservatorship of both her estate and her person. The ‘temporary’ conservatorship lasted 13 years until November 12, 2021 when Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny finally terminated the egregious legal agreement. However, in this piece this author questions why this was allowed to happen in 21st century America - how was a global superstar capable of earning millions per annum deemed incapable of living her life? The grave answer is that the legal tool of a conservatorship, often appropriate in many circumstances of actual incapacity, was in this case abused by the conservators for financial gain. This resulted in Spears having no capacity to hire her own legal representation and no access to justice for 13 years. She was arguably the most visible prisoner in the entire world.

A Conservatorship (a) What is it?

As Aaron Larson outlines, under US law a conservatorship is the appointment of a guardian or a protector by a judge to manage the financial affairs and/or the daily life of another person due to old age, physical or mental limitations. For adults, the guardian is termed a conservator, and the person under the conservatorship is called a conservatee. Conservatorships can be “of the person,” where the conservator has control over the conservatee’s daily activities such as healthcare and living arrangements. Alternatively, the conservator may be “of the estate” where financial decisions are controlled. In Spears’ case, she was placed under a conservatorship of both her person and her estate. In practice, this meant that she was deemed incapable of making any decisions relating to her personal life and managing her own finances effectively.

(b) Why Britney’s Conservatorship Never Made Sense

Critically, as Spears’ attorney Matthew Rosengart outlines, in almost all cases a conservatee does not and cannot work, support themselves nor a family. Moreover, in every case a reason for instating the conservatorship must be given.

Court documents revealed that one of the primary reasons given for Spears’ conservatorship was early onset dementia. However, the year before Spears’ conservatorship was instated she released the most critically-acclaimed record of her career, ‘Blackout.’ Only a year after the conservatorship started she released another album, ‘Circus’ and embarked on the Circus World Tour, the fifth highest grossing tour of 2009 grossing $131.8 million. This is some achievement for a person deemed incapable of deciding if she needed to visit the GP, what friends she is allowed to have or whether she can drive her own car. It is difficult to see how early onset dementia was deemed acceptable as a basis for the conservatorship when the Circus Tour required Britney to remember both detailed lyrics and intricate dance routines. Moreover, the gross earnings of the tour clearly demonstrate that Britney was a person quite capable of earning enough money to support herself and her family.

From a reasonable person’s perspective, Spears’ conservatorship was clearly flawed from as early as one year into the arrangement. While initially after her very public breakdown in 2007 some intervention into Spears’ life may have been merited, why was a ‘temporary’ arrangement designed to get her back on her feet allowed to operate for 13 years? How did a conservatorship metamorphose into what now public documents have called a “hybrid business model.” Herein, it is argued that the access to justice issue is at the heart of allowing this to occur.

The Access to Justice Issue In Specie : A Good Lawyer Can Make All the Difference

At the core of Spears’ conservatorship arrangement was the fact she was repeatedly deemed incapable and lacking capacity to hire a lawyer of her own choosing. Instead, the court appointed an attorney to act on her behalf, using a system that is generally reserved for those who cannot afford their own. The stipulations around her even speaking to other counsel to seek legal advice were so strict that, while held involuntarily in a mental health facility in 2020 as court documents reveal, she had to go to the lengths of asking a lawyer to “dress up as a plumber” so she could see him. This creates many access to justice issues as now outlined.

(a) Incapacity to Hire Effective Counsel

A more experienced lawyer could have represented Spears’ interests more effectively if she only had freedom to choose her own. This can be noted as her new counsel, which she was allowed to select after the court granted her request after 13 years, has effectively ended the conservatorship in 6 months, whereas her court appointed attorney never came close.

Moreover, the insularity of the conservatorship meant that no meaningful review took place with Spears actually present in the courtroom. This allowed Spears, as she has testified under oath, to “not know she could petition to end the conservatorship.” Her court appointed attorney never made this clear. This may be a general comment on the difference between an expensive celebrity attorney and one who was not as effective, largely due to the systemic nature of legal aid being under-resourced. However, the point to be made here is that Spears, by being controlled under the conservatorship, was not given the effective legal advice and consequential access to justice that she could readily afford. By not being provided with the information that she could petition to end the conservatorship until many years into this “temporary” arrangement, not only did her conservators financially profit from the legal arrangement, but her voice never made it to the courtroom. Her views were not considered. She was seen as a commodity, a commercial entity, a powerhouse that paid her staffs’ wages. This defies the legal maxim that legal systems should ensure Audi Alterum Partum (let the other side be heard).

(b) The Broader Issue Impacting Other Lay Litigants

Consequently, the second access to justice issue here is as the court used a system to appoint Spears an attorney which is reserved for those who don’t have the resources to hire their own, potentially many individuals were unable to access the courts, as one less lawyer was available.

Not only does Spears’ case show that a conservatorship can be abused to effectively silence one of the most powerful celebrities in the world, but her case also demonstrates that resources can greatly assist in achieving access to effective justice in that her new lawyer has been far more impactful. This compounds the fact that a socio-economic divide exists in litigation and in many instances money and resources are used to help win cases.

The Need for Public Action to Allow Access to Justice

Another element of Spears’ case which is generalisable is how a public movement and public debate can spur social and legal change. The #FreeBritney campaign, now termed a “Human Rights Movement” by Spears herself, is credited with being an impetus for the court to grant Britney the right to hire her own lawyer. The fact this movement was garnering traction in the worldwide media no doubt put pressure on the judiciary in California to allow Spears effective access to the courts. This demonstrates just how key public discourse is to

effecting change and mobilising the power of the people.

However, while Spears’ case garnered huge support from her fans, one must question how many of the other approximately 1.3 million guardianship/conservatorships in the US are abusive.

It is possible that individuals are not aware of their rights to petition to end these legal arrangements. If this information can be hidden from one of the most legendary superstars in the world, a lay person in the US may have zero chance of gaining the access to the courts that Spears did. This is why proposals to review all active conservatorships in the US must be favoured. On one view a conservatorship, when abused, may act as a court-sanctioned institutional model which allows for the evasion of basic human rights.

Conclusion

While the #FreeBritney movement and the ability to hire an experienced lawyer assisted Spears to gain the access to the justice needed to terminate her conservatorship; this cannot be the end of this movement. As stated, 1.3 million conservatorship cases are active at present in the US, many may be just as, if not more abusive than what the court documents reveal in Spears’ case. A clearly falsifiable diagnosis of early onset dementia or any other mental health issue cannot be the basis for imposition of a conservatorship without rigorous review. Spears’ case has highlighted that the insularity of these conservatorship arrangements can lead to these seemingly well-intentioned legal relationships being abused. Increasing the levels of accessibility to justice by allowing conservatees to attend hearings, ensuring they have all the information available to them about the conservatorship, and having the ability to hire their own legal counsel, are all elements which to some degree can evade this legal tool being abused.