Feb 28, 2007 1:38 pm US/Pacific
Appeals Court Upholds Anna Nicole Ruling
NASSAU, Bahamas (CBS News) ―
A Florida appeals court ruled Wednesday to uphold Judge Larry Seidlin's decision to give custody of Anna Nicole Smith's body to a court-appointed lawyer representing her nearly 6-month-old daughter Dannielynn.
A burial was scheduled to take place at 10:30am on Friday.
Three judges from the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach,
Fla. considered a request by the Playboy model's mother to let her bury her daughter in Texas. As both sides argued their cases in court, judges seemed to favor the argument of Howard K. Stern, Smith's boyfriend.
One of the three judges presiding over the Broward County court questioned whether it would be fair to the child to carry out Virgie Arthur's request to have Smith's body buried in Texas while the infant's brother, Daniel Smith, is buried in the Bahamas.
Arthur's attorney stressed that Smith's supposed wishes to be buried in the Bahamas were never in writing. "The law stands that if it's not expressed in writing, then we look to the person who is a legally authorized person," attorney Roberta Mandel said in court Wednesday.
Mandel said Arthur is that "authorized person" according to a funeral home director's statute, since Smith's child is under the age of 18.
"(Virgie Arthur) still is the legally authorized person as the trial court found … give this mother a chance to bury her child," she said in closing statements.
Mandel told reporters earlier this week that she and her client were going to take this case as far as necessary.
An attorney for Stern said Wednesday that an earlier ruling should be upheld because "Judge Seidlin made the right moral and the right legal choice."
Last week, Judge Seidlin turned the burial decision over to a court-appointed advocate for Smith's infant daughter, and the advocate said Smith would be buried next to her son in the Bahamas. Smith's mother appealed the ruling.
Attorneys for Stern say Arthur is trying to "place her in death where she never wanted to be in life."
Smith, 39, died in a Florida hotel Feb. 8, but her body has remained at a medical examiner's office because of the dispute.
Her baby daughter is living in a gated, waterfront home in the Bahamas, where a judge is hearing the child custody dispute between Stern and Arthur.
On Tuesday, Arthur saw the little girl for the first time and left the home in tears.
"She's in mourning having lost her daughter and grandson both within the last five months," said her attorney, Deborah Rose. Smith's son, Daniel, died last fall in the Bahamas just a few days after Dannielynn's birth. Smith and Stern were living in the Bahamas at the time, and Daniel, 20, is buried there.
Rose said Arthur's permission for the visit with Dannielynn did not come from the court, but she declined to say who had authorized it. Arthur was in the Bahamas for a hearing Tuesday that Rose described as a "small technical procedure."
"Our objective is really to assist our client in having access to her granddaughter and foremost to ensure the best interests and welfare of the child are secured," Rose said.
The baby's paternity is also in dispute, a Florida judge said Wednesday that his court does not have jurisdiction in the matter.
Stern is listed on her birth certificate, but two other men also claim to be the father. Los Angeles photographer Larry Birkhead, Smith's ex-boyfriend, wants a Fort Lauderdale court to enforce a California judge's orders so he can get DNA samples from Smith's body and the baby. Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, also says he may be the father.
A medical examiner has yet to determine Smith's cause of death. Toxicology results could take up to two more weeks.
Smith married Texas oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994 when he was 89 and she was 26. The reality TV star and Playboy Playmate had been fighting his family over his estimated $500 million fortune since his death in 1995, and her baby daughter could inherit millions.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
