GUILTY Bali - Sheila von Wiese Mack, 62, found dead in suitcase, 12 Aug 2014 #4

[LinasK]

I wonder what will prevent HM from getting pregnant asap by TS once the baby is born? I assume they will be able to find a dark corner or something?

Why do they have to wait 2 years to take the baby from her??? The child deserves a better start to life than that- to be raised in prison by your murderous mother who murdered your grandmother.

 

[FigTree]

I wonder what will prevent HM from getting pregnant asap by TS once the baby is born? I assume they will be able to find a dark corner or something?

A transfer of one of them to another jail, so they are separated.
Its not uncommon that prisoners are moved - and with no warning - to another facility.

 

[Kamille]

A transfer of one of them to another jail, so they are separated.
Its not uncommon that prisoners are moved - and with no warning - to another facility.

I believe the female member of the Bali 9 was transferred without warning a couple years back? No doubt she was not impressed.

MOO

 

[gracehatter]

Which is exactly why she will not allow this baby to be put up for adoption. She would rather keep the innocent in prison with her to insure she has control over the trust money. The baby gets the money, even if HM gets a very light sentence, (and then can live out her life in Bali, using the trust fund money for herself).

If she is convicted of having a role in the murder she will not inherit regardless of her sentence. Nor will Stella since any claim or rights she may have flow from HM and when HM's rights are gone, so are hers...unless there is case law out there saying differently (and for all I know there may be, but I haven't seen it) I wonder if the prison "policy" about allowing a Mother to keep her baby for two years is discretionary and just how that is decided?

 

[SouthAussie]

Favia, who joined Mack's legal team to oversee the health and well-being of the mother and child, said it still is uncertain how long Stella will stay with Mack after she is born.

"They are allowed to stay in prison while the mother is breastfeeding," Favia said. "I've heard different reports that six months to two years is permissible."

She said Stella Mack would be considered a U.S. citizen and placed in foster care, but it is unclear whether she would remain in Bali.

http://www.oakpark.com/News/Article...ld-of-Oak-Park-teen-suspected-of-Bali-murder/

 

[SwampMama]

I'm pretty sure this bumbling crime duo has figured out that they need HM to not be charged so she can get the money. I am sure she has explained to him that he must take all the blame so she can inherit her millions and then can use those millions to bribe the jail or to hire a helicoptor to break him out of jail, fly off to a country that doesn't extradite and the world will be theirs. Yeah, that'll work, especially considering how brilliantly their planning has gone so far. Plus, If she would kill her mom to get the money, don't think she won't throw TS under the bus and not look back.

TS is a fool if he takes the fall for this. It is obvious that she wanted her mother gone (aka dead) for many years before the murder. SVM was the only thing standing between HM and "her" money. As we well know, HM told everyone "i refuse to let someone say what i can do, gettin money my attitude you know what it do".

 

[Kamille]

If she is convicted of having a role in the murder she will not inherit regardless of her sentence. Nor will Stella since any claim or rights she may have flow from HM and when HM's rights are gone, so are hers...unless there is case law out there saying differently (and for all I know there may be, but I haven't seen it) I wonder if the prison "policy" about allowing a Mother to keep her baby for two years is discretionary and just how that is decided?

I don't think HM's conviction, if there is one, would negate the baby from being the next in line to inherit Sheila's estate. It should IMO, because SWM did list an alternate heir in her brother I believe. Maybe gitana1 will know more about that. I can't see any other reason why an attorney would latch herself on to an unborn child that she is not getting paid to represent.

MOO

 

[gracehatter]

I don't think HM's conviction, if there is one, would negate the baby from being the next in line to inherit Sheila's estate. It should IMO, because SWM did list an alternate heir in her brother I believe. Maybe gitana1 will know more about that. I can't see any other reason why an attorney would latch herself on to an unborn child that she is not getting paid to represent.

MOO

I should have qualified that by saying 1st if there is an adoption, her rights are cut off in any event. I think gitana1 is in Ill. so she could expound on it...some states laws of intestacy/slayer rule are stricter than others and they preclude the heirs of the convicted from inheriting and there is a chance that if the question is one of a civil matter (no conviction and/or no adoption), that the Ill. court may under an equitable theory say Stella should not inherit either. Are you saying SVM's will stated that if for some reason HM could not take, all is to go to her brother? I hadn't heard of the details of her will having been disclosed, have they been published? I won't speak to Flavia's motives in the instant case other then to say I can think of a couple.

 

[LinasK]

I should have qualified that by saying 1st if there is an adoption, her rights are cut off in any event. I think gitana1 is in Ill. so she could expound on it...some states laws of intestacy/slayer rule are stricter than others and they preclude the heirs of the convicted from inheriting and there is a chance that if the question is one of a civil matter (no conviction and/or no adoption), that the Ill. court may under an equitable theory say Stella should not inherit either. Are you saying SVM's will stated that if for some reason HM could not take, all is to go to her brother? I hadn't heard of the details of her will having been disclosed, have they been published? I won't speak to Flavia's motives in the instant case other then to say I can think of a couple.

Not gitana, but she's based in California.

 

[DexterMorgan]

Will the grand child whom is yet born get the money?

 

[Orange Tabby]

According to the Chicago Tribune on January 16:

The judge also appointed an interim trustee regarding the legal fees because, Cohen said, Mack's uncle could receive proceeds from the trust if she is executed and her baby girl does not survive.​

BBM. See: http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82554099/

It’s interesting that Judge Cohen appears to believe that Stella stands between Heather and William Wiese as Sheila’s beneficiary. He doesn’t seem to think that Heather’s guilt would disqualify Stella, because if Heather is executed, Cohen says that Stella would have to die before WW would benefit from the trust.

I don’t think this is a particularly strong indication that Stella would automatically be next in line to inherit if Heather is found to have intentionally and unjustifiably caused the death of her mother, because that question wasn’t directly before Judge Cohen.

But it’s worth noting.

 

[Orange Tabby]

Observations on the Illinois Slayer Statute

I’ve had a look at the Illinois slayer statute and I’ll post the full text of that law separately. First, here are a few things I note:


--No civil case for wrongful death can go to trial until the criminal proceeding “has been finally determined by the trial court.”

--Additionally, “A determination under this Section may be made by any court of competent jurisdiction … provided that no such civil proceeding shall proceed to trial … prior to one year after the date of death.” Now we know why no wrongful death action has yet been filed. Heather also cannot be compelled to undergo discovery for a civil trial as long as she’s contesting a criminal charge.

--The trustee is not liable for distributing income from the trust as long as it occurs prior to a finding that Heather “intentionally and unjustifiably cause[d] the death” of her mother. So should Heather be acquitted in her criminal trial and her uncle files a wrongful death lawsuit, Mackoff, it seems, can continue to distribute funds to her, should he remain the interim trustee. Aargh!

--The Illinois statute is silent on the matter of the slayer’s heirs. That is, it does not ensure that Stella is barred from inheriting. That doesn’t mean there won’t be a legal fight, but anyone who tries to keep the money from Heather by keeping the money from Stella won’t have an automatically easy time of it.

--The statute does say, “The property, benefit, or other interest shall pass as if the person causing the death died before the decedent” which in our particular case is interesting. Because if Illinois law considers that Heather died before her mother, then Stella doesn’t exist, because she will be born after the legal fiction of Heather’s death. I don’t believe any finding on this issue would ever be as simple as that. I just think it’s worth noting that legal fictions do give rise to strange things. I expect this to become a very interesting legal matter.

--The trustee of Sheila’s trust, if he believes Heather to be guilty of the murder, has a duty to “fully cooperate with law enforcement authorities and judicial officers in connection with any investigation of such death.” I wonder if this means William Wiese has formally apprised Indonesian authorities of his concerns about bribery and corruption in this trial.

 

[Orange Tabby]

Text of the Illinois Slayer Statute

Here is the full text of the Illinois slayer law, from the Illinois Compiled Statutes. I have added a few extra paragraph breaks to improve readability.

(755 ILCS 5/2-6) (from Ch. 110 1/2, par. 2-6)

Sec. 2-6. Person causing death.

A person who intentionally and unjustifiably causes the death of another shall not receive any property, benefit, or other interest by reason of the death, whether as heir, legatee, beneficiary, joint tenant, survivor, appointee or in any other capacity and whether the property, benefit, or other interest passes pursuant to any form of title registration, testamentary or nontestamentary instrument, intestacy, renunciation, or any other circumstance. The property, benefit, or other interest shall pass as if the person causing the death died before the decedent, provided that with respect to joint tenancy property the interest possessed prior to the death by the person causing the death shall not be diminished by the application of this Section.

A determination under this Section may be made by any court of competent jurisdiction separate and apart from any criminal proceeding arising from the death, provided that no such civil proceeding shall proceed to trial nor shall the person be required to submit to discovery in such civil proceeding until such time as any criminal proceeding has been finally determined by the trial court or, in the event no criminal charge has been brought, prior to one year after the date of death.

A person convicted of first degree murder or second degree murder of the decedent is conclusively presumed to have caused the death intentionally and unjustifiably for purposes of this Section.

The holder of any property subject to the provisions of this Section shall not be liable for distributing or releasing said property to the person causing the death if such distribution or release occurs prior to a determination made under this Section.

If the holder of any property subject to the provisions of this Section knows or has reason to know that a potential beneficiary caused the death of a person within the scope of this Section, the holder shall fully cooperate with law enforcement authorities and judicial officers in connection with any investigation of such death.

(Source: P.A. 86-749.)

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=075500050K2-6

 

[Kamille]

Thanks for all the great info Orange Tabby. Sounds like this will be setting some new precedents when it all ends up in court. And it appears that Sheila's estate will end up going to lawyer fees in the long run. Which is ironic considering a large portion of it it was from a lawsuit to begin with.

I believe it was Heather herself who made the claim that her Uncle was withholding funds from her because he wanted the money for himself. Which started the ball rolling with Scifo's emergency hearing. I also believe it was this conflict that forced Cohen to appoint an interim trustee. So I do believe that Sheila had indicated in the event of both of their deaths, her brother WW was to inherit her estate.

Money really is the root of all evil.

MOO

 

[Kamille]

So was there no court appearance today? There doesn't seem to be one thing online to indicate that there was. Not one photo, video or news story.

 

[Orange Tabby]

I should have qualified that by saying 1st if there is an adoption, her rights are cut off in any event.

[SBM]

This makes sense to me, because upon adoption, a child’s relationship with biological parents is severed and a new relationship with adoptive parents is created.

Yet, in reading slayer rule material, I’ve come across one case where a child was adopted and yet was still able to inherit through her natural father. The case is In re Estate of Van Der Veen (Kansas 1997), and I’ll provide further details in a later post devoted entirely to slayer rule cases concerned with the inheritance by children of the slayer.

I also bumped into a weird exception in Arizona, where it seems to be the case that if one of the child’s natural parents maintains parental rights and his/her spouse adopts the child, this child can still inherit from the other natural parent. It’s not relevant to the Sheila-Heather-Stella matter, but you might want to give it glance, since you seem to have an interest and knowledge about adoption.

http://www.myazbar.org/azattorney/archives/march97/3-97a3.htm

 

[Orange Tabby]

I should have qualified that by saying 1st if there is an adoption, her rights are cut off in any event.

I forgot! I wanted to ask this: if Stella inherits before she is adopted, wouldn’t she get to keep the inheritance?

Would you agree it’s more likely that Heather will be found responsible for Sheila’s death before Stella is taken from her rather than the other way around?

 

[Orange Tabby]

There’s a very good article on the slayer rule and the question of a slayer benefiting from the disbursement of the victim’s estate to relatives of the slayer. It’s entitled “Should Cain’s Children Inherit Abel’s Property?: Wading into the Extended Slayer Rule Quagmire” and is written by Karen J. Sneddon.

It’s very long (39 pages), but if you have time, it is really worth a look. Many of the cases it discusses concern whether or not a slayer’s children can inherit from the victim.

It opens by saying:

“A killer should not benefit from the death of his or her victim. Confusion exists as to whether this notion precludes not only direct benefits, like inheriting the victim’s property, but also precludes indirect benefits. Indirect benefits include instances where the individual who inherits the victim’s property subsequently gives the victim’s property to the killer. The individual may give the killer the property to pay for the killer’s legal expenses or to support the killer upon completion of the killer’s prison sentence. Generally, the law prohibits an individual from doing indirectly what he or she cannot do directly. And even though “[t]he law generally will not permit by indirection or circuity what it will not allow directly,” attempts by courts, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, to address the problem of indirect benefits to the killers have been trapped in a quagmire of conflicting goals and fact-specific decisions. Such decisions provide little guidance or direction to future decision makers. This Article argues that a killer should not be able to indirectly benefit from the death of his or her victim. More specifically, this Article examines case law grappling with the ability of the killer’s relatives to receive the victim’s property. This Article then examines the challenges, feasibility, and necessity of crafting a rule that prevents killers from indirectly benefiting from the death of their victims. Finally, this Article proposes a clearly articulated rule that further both the relevant policies and acknowledges the significance of certain facts.”

One thing that is not heartening, is that the author concludes that courts far too often are led to rule that some or all of a victim’s proceeds should go to the slayer’s minor children, particularly if such children are direct descendants of the victim. She writes:

“The courts are most heavily influenced by whether the potential beneficiaries are minors and whether the potential beneficiaries are the victim’s issue (descendants of the victim).”

She also writes: “While no court ignores the unjust enrichment policy of the slayer rule, unjust enrichment is not the paramount concern of courts in the area of testate succession.” She says courts are concerned with the testator’s intent, even though courts, in her view, don’t always do a very good job of it. “When courts consider the nature of the relationship between the victim and the potential beneficiary, they consider only the blood relationship between the victim and the potential beneficiary and not consider the actual relationship of the parties. Such focus can lead to odd results, such as granting property to a slayer’s minor child in spite of the fact that the victims were unaware of the child’s existence.”

It’s from November 2007 (University of Missouri - Kansas City Law Review), so is not as up-to-date as I’d like.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2357162

 

[Orange Tabby]

Karen J. Sneddon’s “Should Cain’s Children Inherit Abel’s Property?: Wading into the Extended Slayer Rule Quagmire”, linked to in my previous post, discusses a large number of slayer rule cases. I will summarize here, along with a few quotations from the article, only those cases which include the possible inheritance by a slayer’s minor children. Sometimes the children are blood relatives of the victim, sometimes not. Sneddon offers much more detail, so I recommend her journal article.

In In re Estate of Van Der Veen (Kansas 1997), a man murdered his parents. His child was allowed to inherit his share of the estate even though (i) the murdered grandparents of this child never even knew she existed; and (ii) she had been adopted before the murder and so the son was not even her legal parent when the court ruled she could inherit. “The court leaped to the inference that the victims would not have intended the slayer’s innocent daughter (their granddaughter) to be disqualified and the entire estate distributed to their daughter [the slayer’s sister]. Thus, the slayer’s daughter was permitted to inherit the slayer’s portion of the victims’ estate, even though the victims were never aware of the existence of their granddaughter.”

In Misenheimer v. Misenheimer (North Carolina 1985), a man killed his father and the court ruled that the slayer’s minor children would inherit his share of the estate. “According to the court, a holding that the slayer’s children were not permitted to inherit would produce an inequitable result since the slayer’s children were innocent of the killing.” A dissenting judge maintained that the majority’s ruling was in conflict with the legislative intent of the slayer statute.

In Baker v. Martin (Missouri 1986) a man murdered his step-mother. His two minor sons were allowed to benefit from the murdered woman’s estate.

In the case of In re Estate of Dorsey (New York 1994) a son murdered his parents. Their wills left their entire estate to the son, their only child. The court ruled that his minor child or children (the article is inconsistent as to how many of his kids were minors) could inherit, saying, “t seems highly unlikely that the two victims ever intended that their only grandchildren would be cut off by the criminal acts of their father.”

In Mueller v. Henke (Illinois 1995), a wife pled guilty to solicitation of murder, the victim being her husband. The alternate beneficiaries of his will were the slayer’s two children from a previous marriage. By the time the case for distributing his property went to court, the slayer was out of prison and acting as guardian of one of her children, then still a minor.

The court noted that because the slayer was acting as guardian of one of the alternate beneficiaries, the slayer could potentially benefit from the victim’s death. They also noted that the slayer’s children had not lived with the victim. The court ruled against distribution of the victim’s property to these children.

This case is particularly noteworthy, because it was in Illinois. It’s important to know that the court ruled against the slayer’s children benefiting from the estate. But there are some important facts which distinguish the case from the Sheila-Heather-Stella potential case. The children were not related to the victim, the victim—who had a chance to know them—didn’t ever live with them (this is a choice Sheila never got to make), and the victim was the husband of the slayer and not a parent.

In Prudential Insurance Company of America v. Athmer (Illinois 1999, but decided in the 7th Circuit), a wife was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus five years (strange sentence!) for her role in her husband’s murder. Her sister and her son by another man were alternate beneficiaries of the victim’s insurance policies. The court was particularly concerned with possible benefits the slayer might receive. “The court noted that requiring the trial court to make a factual determination as to whether the slayer’s relatives are likely to confer a significant benefit on the slayer ‘requires an inherently speculative judgment about the future and an investigation of family relations quite likely to be of Faulknerian opacity….’” But the trial court had found that the slayer was unlikely to benefit and the 7th Circuit ruled that the slayer’s relatives could receive the insurance proceeds. (I’m not clear on whether the son who benefited was a minor.)

In Bates v. Wilson (Kentucky 1950), the slayer’s four-year-old daughter inherited the property of the victims, her grandparents. The court said “to hold that the slayer’s child was prohibited from inheriting from the victim was “to punish a baby who could not have counseled, advised or influenced her father in the commission of his crime, and takes from her the inheritance to which she is … entitled.”

In the case of In re Estate of Cox (Montana 1963) a husband shot his wife and then committed suicide. The couple had one child together and the husband had children from a previous marriage. The slayer’s children from the previous marriage argued they were entitled to the entire estate because their father outlived his wife so the estate was entirely his and therefore should pass to them. The court ruled the slayer rule applied also to the slayer’s heirs.

In In re Norton’s Estate (Oregon 1944) a man killed his mother and the court had to decide whether the slayer’s son could inherit. They ruled he could not because the deceased was intestate and Oregon only permits grandchildren to inherit if the parent connecting them to the grandparent(s) is dead. The slayer was not dead, so the child could not inherit. Note that the law in this case is clearly different from the law in Illinois, as the Illinois slayer statute explicitly renders the slayer “dead” for legal purposes such as inheritance. This case was overruled on appeal, but for non-slayer rule reasons.

In Cook v. Grierson (Maryland 2004), a man stabbed his father. The deceased was survived by his wife, the slayer, and the slayer’s three minor children, the grandchildren of the victim. The court found that Maryland’s common law slayer rule prevented not only the slayer but also anyone claiming inheritance through the slayer, to be barred from inheriting.

The case which appears to govern Maryland slayer rule law is Price v. Hitaffer (Maryland 1933), where the court held “that a slayer, and anyone claiming through or under the slayer as an heir or representative was prevented from inheriting from the slayer’s victim.” It’s interesting to note that Maryland is one of only five states which does not have a slayer statute. Cases in that state are determined by common law.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2357162

 

[FigTree]

In which/whose Will did it state that the inheritance was to go to 'no other child' - because I kept thinking that technically, any child (Stella) is 'another child'?