A judge Friday extended until the fall a temporary guardianship that Carol Burnett and her husband have over the comedian’s teenage grandson, while saying said she was pleased with the way the boy is doing and the progress his drug-plagued mother is making.
“Everything seems to be going along swimmingly,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Deborah L. Christian said of the case involving 13-year-old Dylan Hamilton-West.
In a report submitted Monday to Christian, lawyer Stefanie M. Bennett, appointed by the judge to represent Dylan’s interests, recommended that the temporary guardianship put in place for her client Sept. 1 be continued instead of establishing a permanent guardianship.
Christian agreed and extended the temporary guardianship by Burnett and her husband, Brian Miller, until Nov. 30.
“Throughout her adult life, and since Dylan’s birth, Erin has suffered from severe substance abuse and addiction issues,” according to the guardianship petition Burnett and Miller submitted last Aug. 18. “In the past 19 years, Erin has been in and out of rehabilitation centers and has been institutionalized a total of eight times for a minimum of 30 days each time.”
The judge also set guidelines by which the boy’s mother, Erin Hamilton, can visit with her son. The directives coincide with those handed down in October 2019 in Dependency Court by Judge Zeke Zeidler.
Hamilton will be allowed monitored two-hour weekly visits arranged with 48 hours notice. She can request additional time in writing from the temporary guardians and the boy’s father, Tony West.
“She is making strides,” the judge said of Hamilton.
All of the parties except Hamilton were linked to the hearing by the court’s video transmission system. Bennett said Hamilton had hoped to take part in the hearing but was unable to do so. Hamilton supports extending the temporary guardianship, Bennett said.
The boy did not want to attend Friday’s hearing, according to Bennett’s report, in which the lawyer also states that West, who is no longer married to Hamilton, gets along well with Burnett and Miller.
After identifying herself at the start of the hearing, the 87-year-old Burnett said nothing more.
Hamilton, a 52-year-old singer, is one of Burnett’s three daughters from her marriage to television producer Joe Hamilton. Their oldest daughter, Carrie, died of cancer in 2002.
Last July 15, Hamilton sent Dylan and her adult son multiple text messages threatening suicide, according to the petition, which says she was subsequently placed by the Los Angeles Police Department on a hold for “suicidality and drug use” before being released July 24.