Wyatt v. Stickney: a historical perspective

A decade after Federal Judge Frank M. Johnson rendered the Wyatt v. Stickney decision in 1972, the case was again scheduled for a hearing in January, 1983. Many of the same issues which were before the Court in the previous decade were again considered in the present hearing. The issues presently before the court include (a) the plaintiffs' motion for diversion of general fund and oil and gas lease funds to the Department of Mental Health for operations, (b) defendants' request for termination of the receiver-ship under which the Department presently operates, (c) plaintiffs' motion for removal of the governor as receiver and appointment of a new receiver; and (d) defendants' motion for modification of the injunction to withdraw the Wyatt standards and substitute Title XIX standards. Since the original ruling, significant changes have occurred at both the national and state levels that will effect the outcome of Wyatt. The historical antecedents of this case must be carefully scrutinized in order to understand the decision which will be rendered. What decision is ultimately rendered in the Wyatt hearings of 1983 will no doubt have a significant effect on services to the mentally retarded throughout the United States.