‘Free Britney’ calls find support through VA Congressman McEachin in letter to U.S. politicians

As the words “Free Britney” have circulated around the world in response to singer Britney Spears’s 13-year-long conservatorship battle, they have found recent support among U.S. politicians including Henrico Congressman A. Donald McEachin (VA-4th District).

McEachin wrote a letter July 20 to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra urging them to adopt the recommendations concerning supported decision-making adopted at the National Guardianship Network’s Fourth National Guardianship Summit, “which would increase autonomy and vastly improve accountability in the guardianship system.”

The letter was designed to bring attention to the current state of adult guardianships, also known as conservatorships such as in the case of Spears, in the U.S. as a legal process used when a person is “perceived or deemed to be no longer capable of making personal decisions about their person or property.”

Under the circumstances of a guardianship, a guardian or conservator is typically appointed by a court to make decisions regarding the subject’s personal and financial affairs, McEachin wrote.

The guardianship system threatens the civil rights of an estimated 1.3 million Americans, including people with disabilities and the elderly, McEachin noted.

“Unfortunately, guardianships are often viewed by courts as harmless, and are imposed routinely with minimal information for determining capacity and without due consideration of less restrictive alternatives,” he wrote. “Depending on the state law, these individuals are stripped of fundamental rights. Too many Americans suffer abuses from guardianships that fail to consider or meet personal needs and preferences, and take unwarranted control of their interpersonal relationships.”

Given that a guardianship removes significant civil rights from an individual, it should only be considered after all viable alternatives have been exhausted, McEachin wrote.

When McEachin first heard about Spears’s conservatorship, he started thinking about the issue of fundamental fairness and how the justice system had treated her and others, he said in an interview with the Citizen.

“One of the things I would hope happens is that the courts take the process more seriously,” McEachin said of Spears’s conservatorship. “Anytime you compromise someone's civil liberties . . . that is not something that should be taken lightly.”

In a Los Angeles court ruling last week, Spears won the ability to hire her own legal representation, after she was deemed mentally unfit to make this decision more than a decade ago, according to the New York Times.

Rulings on guardianships should be made with the greatest level of seriousness that they deserve, McEachin added.

McEachin urged Garland, Becerra and their respective departments to consider:

• the provision of education, training, and outreach programs (through the Department of Health and Human Services, in partnership with states and National Guardianship Network organizations) about supported decision-making as an alternative to guardianship. The resources, he said, should be directed toward those at risk of or subject to guardianship, and efforts should be made to ensure targeted outreach to marginalized, underrepresented populations;

• expanding supported decision-making through the promotion and expansion of federally funded pilot projects. HHS, in partnership with Congress, he said, should work to target diverse and marginalized populations, including those with differing disabilities, and should establish and scale up best practices to help address disparities in the quality of care;

• ensuring through the Department of Justice that courts  consider supported decision-making as an alternative to guardianship, not only during the initial appointment, but periodically thereafter;

• that DOJ, in conjunction with federal and state agencies,  recognize supported decision-making as a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended.

Adoption of the recommendations would be a positive and critical first step toward restoring civil rights for those under guardianships, McEachin wrote.

“Every individual, regardless of whether they have a disability or not, deserves a life of dignity and respect,” he wrote.