GRETCHEN HAMMOND

Author | Journalist | Photographer

The Fortress - A Special Investigation

As a companion piece to American Unpeople, the investigation in Michigan that partially serves as the background to the book is presented here.
Independent research took over 18 months during which myself, three interns and a forensic accountant were embedded in The Oakland County Probate Court in the Detroit, Michigan suburbs. Once described by local historians as “a fortress”, there, we examined over 1,700 guardianship and conservatorship case files, visited small group and nursing homes, observed judges during court cases and spoke to experts and witnesses both state and nationwide. For alleged victims and their families, both the court and its guardianship system have earned its historical name.  
This is the story of The Fortress and the countless disposable people trapped inside it who have committed no crimes and yet have been stripped of their civil and human rights. It was a finalist for the Lisagor Award for Excellence in Journalism.

The Oakland County Probate Court in Pontiac, Michigan

The Fortress Part One of Five: Unacknowledged and Unprotected

The practice of guardianship has been traced back to 1270 England, when King Henry III “assumed control over the estates of lunatics and idiots.” As with other laws exported to former British colonies that are still practiced in some form, although the language has changed,  the basic principles of guardianship in the United States remain the same. At the Oakland County Probate Court in Michigan’s Detroit suburbs, they are practiced en masse and with sublime disregard for the rights and lives of the people they claim to protect. 

Padlocked refrigerator at Oak Park unlicensed group home.
Image by Slone Terranella

The Fortress Part Two of Five: Protected in Hell

Over Thanksgiving 2018, my team of investigative interns and I traveled to the nursing and small group facilities in which the Oakland County Probate Court’s professional guardians had placed their wards after removing them from their homes via court order. What we found was heartbreaking, sickening and appalling testament to what happens when a population of people are considered disposable.

Thomas Howard in the last days of his life.
Image courtesy Dr.Bashar Abou-Rass

The Fortress Part Three of Five: Profiting from Protection

The discovery of what became of people’s homes and property after they were placed under guardianship at the Oakland County Probate Court, and who benefitted, was a matter of sifting through accounts filed by the court’s professional guardians and a long trail of LLCs formed by realtors and property investors. The money to be made, by everyone except the ward, is copious and caused a Forensic Accounting Investigator to wonder aloud about what he called a “proliferation of improprieties”.

An Oakland County Probate Court ward named Rose sleeps in an unlicensed group home on Matthews Street in Pontiac.
Image by Gretchen Rachel Hammond

The Fortress Part Four of Five: The Consequences of Protecting Justice

There is more than one reason the Oakland County Probate Court is called “The Fortress.” For the wards of the state, their families and the few attorneys willing to fight the guardianships the court doles out, The Fortress is nearly impossible to escape. Cronyism abounds and protection for professional guardians, and the judges who show almost complete deference to them, comes in the form of an almost incestuous network of campaign donations and numerous Attorneys General and state Governors who have looked the other way to guardian’s abuses.

Oakland County ward Nancy Haddock in an ICU following guardianship.
Image courtesy of Catherine Haddock

The Fortress Part Five of Five: Protected by Secrecy and Ageism

How does a country  and a culture that embraces freedom and individual rights condone both to be removed from thousands of innocent people? Why are brief court hearings with almost no witnesses that leave an individual with less rights than a convicted felon, allowed to continue unabated in the shadows of America’s legal system? It turns out disposable Americans are a consequence of what comedian Bill Maher once called “America’s last acceptable prejudice”.

Forensic Accounting Report

After the publication of The Fortress in 2019, a peer reviewed study in the Journal of Professional and Forensic Accounting that examined the financial documents filed by the Oakland County Probate Court’s professional guardians was undertaken. It examined how the sweeping nature of the rights and powers transferred from that individual to a guardian or conservator have left open the possibilities for abuse and exploitation.