With all due respect -- Leona was a smart woman, who sat with her lawyers, carefully drew up a will, and decided to give money to her dog. It should be a done deal.
You don't like a judge to play God and transfer the money to a charity of his choosing? Fine. I agree with you.
I don't like a judge to play God and transfer the money to a blood-relative of your choosing. How is your opinion on this any better than the judge's?
Leona directed where the money should go. Her wishes should be carried out.
But....but.....but.....she directed that her pooch get all the pelf, so her wishes WEREN'T carried out.
I personally don't give a doggone, but if an unsatisfactory decision HAD to be made, the judge should have come down on the side of the blood heirs.
At one time, Leona may have been a "smart woman" as you said, but anyone who leaves millions to a dog with a finite life expectancy is whacky. Her whole history as an adult shows her to be an unstable woman. A judge ruled she was mentally unfit when she executed her will. Her nuttiness is easily researched on Google or Yahoo.
She was so smart she was convicted of federal income tax evasion and other charges and was sentenced to the federal pen. She spent the rest of her life in isolation with no friends except her pooch.
In her hatred to deny her kin any benefit from her will, she only enriched scores of lawyers over the decades. She wasn't called "The Queen of Mean" for nothing.
She is probably best-remembered for saying, "WE don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."
Leni