Ellizzette McDonald v. Shawn McDonald

Dr. John W. McDonald, III, M.D., Ph.D., was a worldrenowned physician and scientist. When he married Ellizzette McDonald, John possessed all necessary competence to marry under prevailing Illinois law. Two months before they married, John’s brother Shawn obtained an order of guardianship in absentia over John which did not address his competency to marry or specifically withdraw his constitutional right to marry. In proceedings after John’s death, the Illinois Supreme Court held that John’s marriage to Ellizzette was void because any order of guardianship eliminated his right to marry. Illinois thus joined at least three states that eliminate an adult ward’s fundamental right to marry without an order specifically addressing whether the right should be removed. At least twelve states hold an order of guardianship itself does not. The court below further held that a ward’s incompetency is “not because the ward lacked the mental competence to understand the nature, effect, duties, and obligations of marriage;” instead, it was because of “the ward’s failure to comply with the provisions for obtaining consent” under a statute – even though no ward has the statutory ability to satisfy these conditions. Every Illinois ward’s right to marry thus is now a constitutional Catch-22. As the partial dissent noted, this decision renders void not only John’s and Ellizzette’s marriage, but an untold number of marriages entered into by couples in Illinois who had no reason to believe their marriages were void. The question presented is: Whether a state statute impermissibly interferes with the fundamental rights of wards to marry under the Equal