030774 'Landmark' Decision on rights of Retarded

MINNEAPOLIS - U.S. District Court Judge Earl R. Larson has ruled that mentally retarded persons confined involuntarily in state hospitals have a constitutional right to treatment to improve their minds and lives.

The ruling, hailed as a landmark decision, could affect more than 3,500 such persons and the mode and methods used to treat them in six state hospitals.

Six mentally-retarded persons, patients in four state mental institutions, were named as plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought in their behalf by the Legal Aid Society.

Named as defendants in the suit were Vera Likins, State, Commissioner of Welfare, and six state hospital administrators.

By agreement of lawyers on both sides, the trial was confined to the Cambridge, Minn., hospital with the understanding that it would apply also to the other hospitals.

In his 23- page decision, Judge Larson said that some of the conditions and practices in the Cambridge Hospital may violate constitutional guarantees against "cruel and unusual punishment."

He questioned the confinement of patients in barren isolation rooms without strict supervision or monitoring; the use of physical restraints without previous attempts to use less restrictive methods and excessive use of tranquilizers to control behavior.