http://www.courts.state.ny.us/ctapps/arguments/2020/Oct20/Video/49.html

So this case was heard in October of 2020.v. As per my understanding, this case revolves around the adoption of a lady named Marian and how her consent was required for adoption. According to the video, Marian didn’t have the capacity to consent whether she wants to be adopted or not because of her mental disabilities or she’s not capable of that. She was under the custody of New York State Mental Hygiene Legal Services and got the lawyer through court I think and it’s called ad litem. The court approved the adoption because Appellate division courts are allowed to do such things if a person is not capable of it, doesn’t matter if it’s a child or an adult. The Appellate Division correctly decided according to the statutes that were provided to express the statutory (legal written law) to dispense with Marian’s consent and that the court did not abuse its discretion when it said that she is “incapable” of taking her own decisions as per what I got. 

I actually second the Appellate Division court because in these situations courts are authorized to approve an adoption even without the consent ( grant permission or agreement of a person to do something) of a person of an adult adoptee. And discretion was not abused because as per what I understood, she’ll get every support an adoptee gets like she’ll be an heir of her adoptive family if she gets away from her biological family and that’s the law. I observed many things like the judge said that if a person is 18 or older and they are unable to consent or if they don’t have “capacity” for it, they can never get adopted. One more thing I observed is that the council (female) said that the state had gotten her custody by her own biological parents when she was a kid which was really shocking for me because I’ve never seen something like that. I was thinking that her parents might have died or something else would’ve had happened that’s why she got adopted. One thing that I really liked about the male council was how he mentioned that Marian is considered “not capable” of making decisions and didn’t even ask if she needed the attorney or if she wanted to appeal to the bigger court but she thinks she could’ve. I like how they both were convincing justices that her adopters or petitioners whatever you want to call them really have a deep emotional attachment with Marian and want her to be a member of their family and she wants the same. The court actually considered her best interests (related to financial and inherit I think) after it was proven by the female council as she kept mentioning best interests. She was saved and cared for in their house, and she was flourishing if I put it in simple words. And how it’s really good for her financially too. One thing that was confusing for me that at the beginning of the video, the council (female) said that Marian’s psychologists proved that she has been diagnosed with a profound intellectual disability her whole life. And the Surrogate court had all the expert opinions and documents that said that she has a lack of ability to provide consent but at the end of the video, she was saying how she’s going to lose a lot of services, distribution of assets, and cannot inherit from her biological family. Like what she meant by that?