Judith Desautell calls herself a "survivor of the probate system."

The Probate Courts—a network of small, administrative courts that handle property and custody issues—may be off the radar of those who haven't had occasion to walk through their doors. But to people like Desautell, the Probate Courts are powerful, life-altering entities. They can take away a person's most fundamental rights—including decisions about their health care, their finances, where they live and who, even among their own family, they're allowed to see.

A former school teacher and mother of two, Desautell suffers from a hereditary disease that's left her partially paralyzed but mentally intact. Her run-in with the Probate Courts began in 2000, when a Manchester probate judge held a hearing at her house to determine if she was able to care for herself. According to Desautell's testimony before the legislature's Judiciary Committee last spring, Probate Judge John Cooney said that her disability—spastic parplegia—meant that she did not have "a brain that functioned." Cooney assigned Desautell a conservator. The conservator put Desautell in a nursing home, and her house was sold to pay for it. Her things were thrown out, her cat was taken to the pound and only 10 garbage bags of her belongings were kept—a haphazard collection of clothes (no shoes, no coats), a dead plant and some material scraps. Among her discarded possessions were family photos and prized antiques.

The biggest segment of our population—the Baby Boomers—is aging rapidly and may soon find itself beleaguered by senility, Alzheimer's or other problems that cloud minds. Ideally, that's where a conservator comes in. Their role is to make decisions for the mentally "incompetent"—whether that's an elderly person with dementia or someone with a serious mental illness—by taking control of their finances and making sure they get the treatment they need. In many cases, things go smoothly. But there are times when a conservator oversteps, like in the case of Desautell—who was not mentally incompetent at all.

"The system was absolutely devastating to people who wanted to stay where they were," says state Sen. Edith Prague, a Columbia Democrat and champion of reforming the probate system.

"Maybe it wasn't the fanciest place in the world, but to them it was home. But the conservators were just putting people in nursing homes without any consideration for the personal wishes of the individual." Prague, 81, is a trained medical social worker and was formerly the state's Commissioner on Aging. She's heard numerous horror stories like Desautell's and urged the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee to do something.

Desautell not only owned her own home, but paid off her mortgage early. She'd had a career and raised a family. In her testimony, Desautell acknowledges that she needed more help at home than she had, and that she should have hired someone for in-home care. But, she testified, "I have a brain. I have reasonable wishes and can make reasonable choices. My voice should have figured somewhere in the discussion." But it didn't. Cooney appointed a conservator to make decisions—all decisions—on Desautell's behalf.

Worse, Desautell says she wasn't allowed access to her own medical records, her mail would come already opened and she was forbidden from talking to the press—all of which limited her ability to advocate for herself. Even her medical insurance and credit cards were cancelled. "There was never any thought to place my furniture in storage," she testified. "I was to be permanently institutionalized."

A new law that goes into effect Oct. 1 aims to rectify these all-too-common problems by limiting the conservator's power. "There were no restrictions [on conservators]," says Prague. "They could do what they wanted to do." Judges also have been reined in: They need clear and convincing proof that a conservator is required.

The state's 123 Probate Court judges decide whether or not a person should be conserved. These judges are elected officials who aren't required to have any legal training. Most are lawyers, but some are not. Among Connecticut's probate judges are a karate instructor, an accountant and a carpenter.

Conservators, meanwhile, are not volunteers. They get paid by their wards if the wards have money, and by the state if the wards do not. Those in charge of wealthy wards can, theoretically, charge whatever they want, so long as they provide the probate court with an itemized list of what they're charging for. Since many are lawyers, they charge their standard fees—typically around $200 an hour. Others may be paid at an hourly rate determined by the court.

A law signed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell this year reforms the process in some basic ways, such as requiring that conservatorship proceedings be tape recorded and that the person being conserved and their family be notified ahead of time in person, instead of by mail. It empowers a ward to be a particpant in selecting his/her conservator. A ward's abilities and capacity to understand what's going on, as well as his/her past preferences and lifestyle, are now expected to be taken into consideration when the court chooses a conservator.

The changes sound simple and seem like common sense, but "will prevent people from being abused," says Prague. "For people already in conservatorship, it will help them. If their families realize they are laws out there, they can help them from being institutionalized."

Gregory Russell and Maydelle Trambarulo are just two people who the new law is meant to protect. What follows are the stories of their journeys through the Probate Court system.

All By Myself
By Freda Moon

Maybe you've seen Gregory Russell at his usual haunt near Popeye's fried chicken on Whalley Avenue. His family says he's often spotted there, talking to himself and asking for spare change from passersby. Twice in the last year, Russell—a schizophrenic who calls himself "By Myself"—has escaped from Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC) on Park Street. Most recently, he was released from Yale-New Haven Hospital's psychiatric unit after a brief stay following a meltdown. His mother Sarah, who's also his conservator, says she wasn't told of his release until after it happened. In a court filing the hospital says it made "numerous calls." Now, in a move that angers the Russell family, the state has applied to overturn Sarah Russell's guardianship of her 41-year-old son.

In the meantime, Gregory is on the streets—periodically being spotted by members of his large extended family, like a rare species for the capture. But it's not easy to catch an adult man, especially when he, as Gregory does, laughs at things that aren't there, darts into heavy traffic and really doesn't want to be caught. For Gregory's family, the catch-run-release cycle is as old as his diagnosis—a diagnosis that came in his early 20s after he was found sitting on the curb one day without a clue who he was. What's new is his family's outrage.

In late June, following Gregory's most recent disappearance into the city, Gregory's older brother, Malik Russell, began firing off letters and making phone calls to anyone who might be able to help. "I inquired about filing a formal complaint because, with all the things that are happening, we felt that something needs to be on the record with Gregory's treatment," says Malik. According to the Russell family, what happened next was simple retaliation. "They put out the word that my mother's unfit and that they should have conservatorship over Gregory based on their stellar record of letting him escape twice," says Malik sarcastically.

Kathryn Mathes is the director of New Haven's "Assertive Community Treatment," or ACT, team—a program that uses aggressive street outreach to treat the most seriously mentally ill patients with the most complex cases. In a two paragraph letter submitted to the probate court, Mathes asks for the Russell conservatorship to be overturned and a court-appointed attorney placed in charge of Gregory's treatment and finances. According to Mathes, Sarah Russell failed to return phone calls and let Gregory's state medical benefits expire. "Without the cooperation of the conservator," she says, Gregory's prescriptions cannot be filled.

Sarah Russell says she did return phone calls, and says she spoke with Mathes on two confrontational occasions. Both times were after Gregory was already released—but the blame for that, she says, lies squarely at the feet of Yale-New Haven and CMHC. "They notified me that they were releasing Greg, but I said, 'You should have notified me first.'

"They said, 'He can't be here forever,'" says Sarah of her conversations with Mathes, "and I said, 'I don't want him to be there forever. I don't want my child put away forever, but I want him to have the treatment he deserves.'" The Russell family feel Mathes' complaint came because they were too involved, their expectations for Gregory's care were too high and because the family was perceived as a nuisance.

But even local mental health advocates who are sympathetic to the difficulties families face in the mental healthcare system say that it's unusual for mental health agencies, like Connecticut Mental Health Center, to get involved with conservatorship issues. "It's very strange," says Ed Mattison, a New Haven alderman and director of South Central Behavioral Health Network. "I don't remember a situation in which the ACT team has acted in this fashion when there's an active family." Though he's not able to speak to the specifics of Gregory Russell's case, he says "there must be more to it than meets the eye."

Michael Mackniak, director of Waterbury-based Melissa's Project, a nonprofit that works with chronically mentally ill conserved people, says that it's difficult for mental health workers and the Probate Administration to find good conservators because it's a lot of work and families are often "burnt out" after years of trying to care for someone with serious mental health problems. Wayne Dailey, spokesman for the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, the state agency that funds Connecticut Mental Health Center and the ACT Team says, "Challenging a conservatorship is something that is always, always approached very carefully and very judiciously.

"Family involvement in assisting a person with mental illness is almost always encouraged," says Dailey. "There are very, very few circumstances where that is not the optimal choice." Those cases include abuse, neglect or "other clinical indications." Nevertheless, in this case, the state is seeking to overturn the conservatorship, and therefore limit the involvement, of the Russell family. Because this is a system that, for privacy reasons, doesn't have a great deal of transparency, it's difficult to know the real reasons why.

The Advocate contacted Mathes by telephone for comment and confirmation of the details of the Russell family's story, but Mathes said medical privacy laws prevent her from being able to discuss the case, and promptly hung up the phone. And the Probate Court file on Russell's conservatorship is virtually empty, save for the form—signed by Gregory in chicken scratch, and by his mother and a judge—that conserved Gregory and a two paragraph letter to the court, in which Mathes makes her case. There's no other information or documentation in the file: no medical records of Gregory's diagnosis and need for a conservator; no information on his mother and her suitability to be a conservator to her son; and no documentation of the hearing in which it was decided that Gregory's mom would take over decision-making for her son.

Without these things, it's difficult for the Russell family to effectively argue for Sarah Russell's continued conservatorship. Without access to his CMHC file, which would presumably document his long history in the system, including his escapes, releases and the kinds of treatments that have been tried, there's no evidence to support their criticisms of CMHC and Yale-New Haven's care. Without documentation of Gregory's original conservatorship hearing, such as a court transcript, it's difficult for the family to show that Gregory's wishes were to be conserved under his mother's watchful eye, not those of a court-appointed stranger.

Starting Oct. 1, conservatorship statutes will require audio recordings of conservatorship hearings. If that had been the law when Gregory was conserved, the Russell family could have pointed unequivocally to Gregory's wishes for his care. There would be clear evidence of his desires.

It might support the family's argument for Sarah Russell's ongoing conservatorship. Likewise, the new law values "continuity in the person's life"—a goal the family could argue is met by their continued involvement in his care—and considers how well the proposed conservator understands the conserved person's preferences, another goal that clearly would not be achieved by appointing someone who has never met Gregory as his conservator.

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When Gregory Russell was young, he was like most of the boys growing up in the old Ashmun Street housing project. He had girlfriends, played basketball, was into hip-hop, hung out with friends and was meticulous about keeping his sneakers clean. In a family that prided itself on academic achievement, Gregory was the first to drop out of high school. Along with the mental illness that appeared in early adulthood, Gregory has a long history of substance abuse. ("I've never seen him do it," says Sarah Russell, who says she doesn't know what he uses, "but I know he does.") But unlike some of the guys he grew up with, he never got into serious trouble. His mother wouldn't tolerate it. "He'll tell you," says Sarah, "'my mom's strict.'" But Sarah also blames her rules for Gregory's sometimes refusing to stay at her apartment in New Haven's Monterey Place. "He doesn't want to follow the rules of my house," she says.

Gregory has 40 convictions on his record, stretching back to 1985, including disorderly conduct, threatening, criminal mischief, interfering with an officer, trespass, possession of narcotics, failure to appear and probation violation—minor crimes, probably linked to his mental illness. None of the convictions are for a felony, according to police records.

Each arrest brought a jail sentence of three to six months, usually followed by time at home, time on the streets and another arrest. Until two years ago, according to Gregory's family, the police department didn't have a record of his mental health diagnosis on file. The Russells pressured the police to change that, and to take him to Yale-New Haven Hospital instead of jail when they pick him up.

The problem, though, is that there aren't many places that are safe for someone as sick as Gregory. The ones that should be—like the treatment centers that sprung up in the 1960s to replace the old-school "lock 'em up and throw away the key" mental hospitals—have failed the Russell family. But as complicated problems go—and mental health is a notoriously complicated problem—the mental health system's failings can't be easily attributed to one culprit (corruption, incompetence) or another (lack of funding, lack of interest).

Sitting on the couch in Sarah Russell's living room, surrounded by pictures of her children, framed prizes and diplomas and toys for her visiting granddaughter, it's difficult to imagine this woman as an indifferent mother. It's not difficult, though, to see that she may not fully understand the complexities of the paperwork, treatment options, housing choices and mental health realities that she's responsible for as her son's conservator.

But the Russell family argues that even if they're sometimes overwhelmed by the difficulty of their task, Gregory's shown more signs of improvement under their watch than in previous years. They've fought for things, like the police recognizing Gregory's condition and dealing with him accordingly, that hadn't happened on the state's watch. Last year, when Sarah got conservatorship of Gregory, she did so with his signature and that of a probate judge. The family feels that if the state wants to have Gregory's choice of conservator overturned, they need a good reason—and they insist that there isn't one.

They say when they visit Gregory at Connecticut Mental Health Center, they're often the only family members there. Instead of being guilty of neglecting Gregory, they say they've done the opposite: They've annoyed the CMHC staff with their insistence on being informed about Gregory's treatment progress, asking to see his medical file (they claim they were told they couldn't) and expressing frustration over him being allowed to escape. Their hope, they say, is to get him "clean" (off of the recreational drugs and onto the psychotropic ones) and stabilized, so they can find a residential program for him that's near to, but outside of, New Haven. They feel he knows the city too well. When he's free to come and go, it's too easy for him to find trouble here.

They say that when they expressed concern about Gregory escaping from CMHC, they were told they shouldn't worry because the center has a team of people whose job it is to do street outreach and find missing patients. The hearing to determine who will be Gregory's guardian will be held on August 6, but it's been weeks since he disappeared and Gregory's still on the streets.