{"id":73715,"date":"2021-07-13T19:28:04","date_gmt":"2021-07-13T23:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=73715"},"modified":"2021-07-13T19:28:04","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T23:28:04","slug":"these-conservatorships-are-an-abomination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=73715","title":{"rendered":"These Conservatorships Are an Abomination"},"content":{"rendered":"

ACLU Files Amicus Brief to Support Britney Spears<\/h1>\n

The pop star has been in a conservatorship for 13 years and recently said publicly she wants out<\/em><\/h3>\n

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Getty Images<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

Lindsey Ellefson
\nThe Wrap<\/p>\n

The ACLU on Tuesday filed an amicus brief in support of Britney Spears as the pop star attempts to free herself from a 13-year conservatorship she called \u201cabusive\u201d in a testimony last month.<\/p>\n

The ACLU filed the brief along with 25 civil and disability organizations in support of Spears\u2019 wish to choose her own attorney, which is prohibited by the conservatorship. Spears\u2019 court-appointed lawyer, Samuel Ingham III,\u00a0resigned<\/a>\u00a0from the case last week. The brief, filed with the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, also calls for her to be given access to assistance and tools to make her selection for his replacement.<\/p>\n

\u201cBritney Spears has said that she wants to pick her own lawyer and the court should respect that wish,\u201d Zo\u00eb Brennan-Krohn, staff attorney with the ACLU\u2019s Disability Rights Project, said in a Tuesday statement. \u201cThe court should ensure Spears has access to the tools she needs to make that choice meaningfully and to hire someone she trusts to advocate for her stated goal: to get out of her conservatorship. Spears\u2019s right to select an attorney is not only a basic tenet of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, but also consistent with principles of personal autonomy and agency. The California Superior Court must recognize Spears\u2019s autonomy and the rights of people with disabilities to live independent, self-directed lives as active members of their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amanda Goad, the Audrey Irmas director of the LGBTQ, Gender & Reproductive Justice Project at the ACLU SoCal, added, \u201cBritney\u2019s superstardom and wealth make this an atypical case, but she has described serious infringements on her civil liberties and dignity that are all too typical for people living under conservatorships and guardianships. It\u2019s not just about Britney. We hope that offering supported decision-making to Britney Spears can serve as a model in other cases, because all people living with disabilities or under conservatorship deserve an opportunity to make their own informed choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ingham was the latest in the team of people surrounding Spears to leave his post following her\u00a0jarring and emotional testimony<\/a>\u00a0given to a Los Angeles court on June 23. Last week, Spears\u2019 longtime manager Larry Rudolph wrote a letter to the pop star\u2019s co-conservators, Jamie Spears and Jodi Montgomery,\u00a0announcing his resignation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/britney-spears-aclu-conservatorship-amicus-brief\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ACLU Files Amicus Brief to Support Britney Spears The pop star has been in a conservatorship for 13 years and recently said publicly she wants out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}