Michael Jackson: Ex-wife Debbie expected to get kids' custody

Michael Jackson: Ex-wife Debbie expected to get kids' custody

Michael Jackson's ex-wife and the mother of his two older children would get preference over custody , even if the pop star designated another person as their guardian after his death. The  legal experts have declared this on Friday.

Although UC Berkeley law professor Herma Hill Kay said that it was "not a slam dunk" that ex-wife Debbie Rowe would win custody, four other experts in family law said that she would have the advantage if a custody battle ensued.

Stanford Law Professor R. Richard Banks said, "She is definitely first in line to get the kids,"  "In fact, she would have the legal right to have custody of the children unless it was found that she was an unfit mother."

Rowe initially signed a contract waiving her parental rights to Prince Michael Jr., 12, and Paris Michael Katherine, 11. Later she changed her mind and went to court to contest the contract.

In the year 2006 an appeal court ruled in her favor and the custody battle was eventually settled out of court. The law professors said that the contract that Rowe had signed was clearly illegal.

Assuming Jackson compensated Rowe for signing away her rights, UCLA law professor Grace Ganz Blumberg said, "You can't buy and sell kids, and that is what would have been going on here. He would have been buying the kids from her."

Blumberg said that the California law permits a parent to give up custodial but not parental rights in the kind of contract that Rowe had signed. It is reported that the appeal's court ruling meant that Rowe is the legal mother of the older children. Further she said, "And if one parent is dead, the other parent is entitled to custody of the child."

USC law professor Scott Altman said that a legal battle over Jackson's three children "seems almost inevitable." Complicating the custody picture is the question of inheritance and the fact that the youngest child, 7-year-old Prince Michael II, was borne by a surrogate.

According to the lawyers the surrogate mother, whose identity is not known, has been reported to be in Europe. If Michael Jackson signed a contract with the woman while in California specifying that California law would prevail, the woman probably would not be able to obtain custody.

"I think it would be a binding contract here," added Fred Silberberg, a Santa Monica-based family law attorney.

Most clinics now gave advise to the prospective parents in surrogacy cases for implanting the surrogate with donor eggs to make it more difficult for the surrogate to later try to reclaim the child. UCLA's Altman said so.

"The surrogate is much less likely to win" if she is not the genetic mother. Altman made the remark. , UC Berkeley's Kay said that the surrogate also would lose if Jackson had legally adopted the child.

In deciding custody issues, a court also could consider whether it would harm the children to be split up. But a court is not obligated to respect the wishes of a parent stated in a will.

He  said, "Most parents who write wills designate someone to be a guardian in the case of their deaths, but usually that becomes operative only when both parents die,"

Jackson married Rowe, his former nurse, in 1996 when she was six months pregnant. They divorced in 1999. Although there is wide speculation that Michael Jackson was not the biological father of Rowe's children, he was the legal father under California law.

Jackson raised his children without their mothers. He said the youngest was conceived with his sperm but that he was barred by contract from disclosing the surrogate's identity.

Blumberg said, "Jackson wanted to be the exclusive parent, but kids need a backup," "People die, so what he did was leave his kids without a parent" who has helped raise them.

Iris Finsilver, a lawyer who represented Rowe in the custody case with Jackson, told a famous news agency that she was certain that Rowe would want custody of her children. She said that Rowe was devastated by the death of Michael Jackson.