Probate Court

Former Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith's heir is not entitled to share in the $1.6-billion estate of her elderly Texas husband, the Supreme Court ruled, apparently ending a Dickensian legal struggle. Because the battle over oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II's wealth outlived most of the parties to the suits, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. compared it to "Bleak House," Charles Dickens' novel about a lawsuit that never ends. Vickie Lynn Marshall, who was better known as Anna Nicole Smith, married the 89-year-old billionaire a year before his death in 1995.

A judge refused to dismiss the case against an 86-year-old murder defendant Wednesday morning and ordered county officials to devise a plan to care for the suspect while protecting public safety. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Norman Shapiro declined to release Nattie Kennebrew, who is legally blind, in a wheelchair and suffers from severe dementia, despite a probate court ruling that determined he could be released into the guardianship of his son. Under state law, defendants cannot be held beyond three years at a state mental facility if they are found incompetent to stand trial -- unless it is determined that they remain a threat to society.

In a scene that grows increasingly common, a frail, 83-year-old widow was taken to Santa Monica hospital last summer, unconscious and alone. Marian Houghtaling made a remarkable recovery and after months of treatment and physical therapy, she is nearly ready to be discharged. But when Houghtaling entered the hospital, her problems were really just beginning. Houghtaling is one of a growing number of older people who can no longer maintain a household by themselves.

Cook County prosecutors are expected to ask a judge Friday morning to exhume the body of a Chicago lottery winner who died of cyanide poisoning, according to the medical examiner's office. A spokeswoman for the Cook County Medical Examiner previously told the Los Angeles Times that the removal of 46-year-old Urooj Khan's remains may not take place for several weeks because the decision must receive a judge's approval and authorities must coordinate with the cemetery. Khan -- who won a $1-million jackpot from the Illinois lottery last summer -- died before he could receive his winnings.

The legal aftermath surrounding Hank Gathers' death officially began Monday in a Los Angeles probate court, as lawyers pitted grandmother against grandson in an attempt to determine who should manage Gathers' estate, assuming there will be one. Gathers, who collapsed March 4 while playing in a Loyola basketball game at Gersten Pavilion and died about two hours later of a heart disorder, was reared in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia attorney Martin Krimsky is expected to be appointed as the special administrator in California of Hank Gathers' estate by a Los Angeles probate court today. A legal battle surrounding Gathers' death began this week with attorneys representing the Gathers' family and Gathers' son fighting to be appointed to administrate the estate, which at this time has little value.

Every week, visitors from around the world file through the halls of a popular tourist attraction in Orange County--not Disneyland, just the Probate Court in Orange. The tourists are court administrators from Singapore, Kuwait and other distant places who have come to see how the court's staff uses computers to reduce paperwork. After four years of tweaking and an investment of $1.3 million, Orange County's Probate Court has moved a long way toward becoming a "paperless courtroom."

Emmeline Frey was wheeled toward the bench, escorted by a family friend. She was 93 years old and frail, suffering from dementia and a broken hip. In San Diego County's busy Probate Court, it was up to Judge Thomas R. Mitchell to decide how to preserve the $1 million she had amassed pinching pennies over a lifetime. On the recommendation of Frey's attorney, he appointed a professional conservator named Donna Daum.

Michael Jackson's elderly mother learned that she had been reported missing when a broken television in her room at an Arizona spa suddenly powered on and began broadcasting a story about her alleged kidnapping, according to court documents filed Thursday. Katherine Jackson wrote that her companions at the isolated resort - a group identified in other court filings as including her children Janet and Jermaine - never told her that her grandchildren were trying to reach her. Her cellphone was taken when she arrived at the Tucson spa, her room phone didn't work and "when one of the people with me asked if I could communicate with my iPad and I replied yes, my iPad was also taken away," she wrote in the signed declaration.

A judge refused to dismiss the case against an 86-year-old murder defendant Wednesday morning and ordered county officials to devise a plan to care for the suspect while protecting public safety. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Norman Shapiro declined to release Nattie Kennebrew, who is legally blind, in a wheelchair and suffers from severe dementia, despite a probate court ruling that determined he could be released into the guardianship of his son. Under state law, defendants cannot be held beyond three years at a state mental facility if they are found incompetent to stand trial -- unless it is determined that they remain a threat to society.

Michael Jackson's elderly mother learned that she had been reported missing when a broken television in her room at an Arizona spa suddenly powered on and began broadcasting a story about her alleged kidnapping, according to court documents filed Thursday. Katherine Jackson wrote that her companions at the isolated resort - a group identified in other court filings as including her children Janet and Jermaine - never told her that her grandchildren were trying to reach her. Her cellphone was taken when she arrived at the Tucson spa, her room phone didn't work and "when one of the people with me asked if I could communicate with my iPad and I replied yes, my iPad was also taken away," she wrote in the signed declaration.

A Los Angeles judge ordered an investigation Friday into the care of Michael Jackson's children, capping a tumultuous week of family feuding in which some relatives of the late pop star accused others of kidnapping their elderly matriarch. Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff, acting on his own initiative, instructed a probate court investigator to prepare a report "addressing the status of the minor children" and their grandmother, Katherine Jackson. The judge stripped the 82-year-old of guardianship of the three children Wednesday after hearing allegations that some of her children were holding her against her will in Arizona.

Dear Liz: My mother died two years ago, and I am trying to figure out how to get any of her things that are family heirlooms. Her husband refuses to part with anything, including her clothing, saying he isn't ready yet and that only when he is ready will he give us anything. Well, he is already remarried. I see items such as my great grandmother's 200-year-old wicker basket that came from Germany and through Ellis Island sitting in their living room being scratched by a cat and used as a piece of everyday furniture.

Child actress Edith Fellows had made about 30 films by the age of 13 when she starred in a heart-wrenching, high-profile 1936 custody case, which was driven, she later said, by "my money — past, present and future. " Abandoned as an infant by her mother, she was being raised by her paternal grandmother, who brought Edith, then 4, to Hollywood from South Carolina after a "talent scout" guaranteed her a screen test for a $50 fee. The address they were given led to a vacant lot, and her grandmother responded to the con man's ruse by cleaning houses so that they could afford to stay.

Former Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith's heir is not entitled to share in the $1.6-billion estate of her elderly Texas husband, the Supreme Court ruled, apparently ending a Dickensian legal struggle. Because the battle over oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II's wealth outlived most of the parties to the suits, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. compared it to "Bleak House," Charles Dickens' novel about a lawsuit that never ends. Vickie Lynn Marshall, who was better known as Anna Nicole Smith, married the 89-year-old billionaire a year before his death in 1995.

Although American fiction offers few distinctive voices at present, there is no mistaking a Joyce Carol Oates story for anyone else's. You could tear off the cover of her latest collection, "Sourland," and identify these stories from their opening lines alone. "Four years old she'd begun to hear in fragments and patches like handfuls of torn clouds the story of the stabbing in Manhattan that was initially her mother's story. " ("The Story of the Stabbing") "Is there a soul I have to wonder.

An Orange County Superior Court judge ruled Friday that Hillary Jade Pedersen is not entitled to share in the multimillion-dollar estate of the late Leisure World founder Ross Cortese, who fathered the woman out of wedlock 32 years ago. Pedersen has been arguing for the last year in Probate Court that she was an omitted heir who should have been included in Cortese's 1987 will.

An appellate court ruled Thursday that the wife of a Stockton man who suffered severe brain damage--and has been paralyzed and unable to communicate since a 1993 traffic accident--has the right to disconnect his life support over the objections of his mother. But the ruling does not allow the removal of feeding tubes keeping Robert Wendland, 48, alive until a San Joaquin County probate court rehears the case.

Michael Jackson's estate is paying his mother more than $86,000 each month to cover her living expenses and those of the pop icon's three children, according to papers filed Thursday in probate court. The singer supported his mother, Katherine, 79, during his life and left her and his children the majority of his vast music empire in a 2002 will. Since it could take years to settle Jackson's affairs and fund the family trust that will support her and the children, estate administrators received court approval to pay Katherine Jackson a personal allowance and an extra amount for the support of the children.

A court official says a woman found guilty of snooping at Britney Spears' house has been sentenced to three years' probation and 240 hours of community service. Los Angeles County Superior Court spokeswoman Patricia Kelly says a judge in Malibu found Miranda Tozier-Robbins guilty of peeping into Spears' home in Calabasas. Kelly says Tozier-Robbins also was ordered Thursday to stay away from Spears and her home. The woman was arrested in April. Deputies found her wearing camouflage, carrying camera equipment and peering through the windows of Spears' home.