Brooke Astor's first husband, Dryden Kuser, was the father of her only son, Anthony. Anthony was adopted by Brooke's second husband, Buddie Marshall. Vincent Astor was Brooke's third husband, and when he died she was left with tens of millions of dollars.
Brooke contributed a great deal to charities in New York City. When she died at age 105 it was claimed that Anthony D. Marshall and his attorney, Francis X. Morrissey, Jr., had wrongfully induced her to change her estate plan to leave more of her money to Anthony instead of to charity.
After a trial involving months of testimony, 18,000 pages of transcripts, and thousands of pages of exhibits, the jury found Mr. Marshall guilty of fourteen charges, including a scheme to defraud, grand larceny, possession of stolen property, and conspiracy. Mr. Morrissey was convicted of forgery and conspiracy.
Very likely an appeal will be filed in this case. It will be a year or more before the appeal is heard, so we may not have a final resolution for several years.
A major question in this case was whether Brooke Astor was competent when she executed a codicil to her will. The issue of competence is a very difficult one, because the judge or jury involved in hearing the facts is trying to determine the state of mind of the decedent months or years before.
A person may be competent for one purpose and not for another. The test for competence in making a will is less stringent than that for entering into a contract, since entering into a contract is usually an adversary proceeding, whereas making a will is not. A person must know in a general way what they own, and who would be the natural objects of their bounty, and must know that they are signing a will.
It has been suggested from time to time that there be a way to have a court test the validity of a will while the testator is still alive. This would have many advantages, the most significant one being that the testator would still be alive and would be able to testify as to what has happened. These pre-death tests of wills have not been adopted in Massachusetts.
