Opinion ID: 557986
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Earlier Litigation.

Text: 19 In November 1972, patients at the Treatment Center filed a federal court complaint alleging that living conditions and programs were substantially inferior to those existing at correctional institutions of the Commonwealth. The complaint charged that the dearth of psychiatric treatment, work opportunities, job training programs, and educational facilities violated the fifth, eighth, and fourteenth amendments to the federal Constitution. 20 The case was assigned to Judge Wyzanski, now deceased. Two consent decrees resulted. We have set out the relevant portions of each decree in an appendix. The first, entered in June 1974, provided in substance that stewardship of the Treatment Center would be vested in DMH rather than DOC; that a graduated system would be developed to ensure that patients were subjected to the least restrictive conditions necessary to achieve full recovery; that vocational and other programs would be implemented; and that rules and regulations governing the daily operation of the Treatment Center would be promulgated. In due course, regulations were prepared. See 104 C.M.R. Sec. 8.00 et seq. (1988). The provision governing administration of treatment capsulates the imperatives of the 1974 decree in the following way: 21 Every patient shall be offered treatment designed to effect his early return to public society. Such treatment shall consist of medical, psychiatric, educational, vocational, rehabilitative, and social services commensurate with the patient's age, background, abilities, and physical and mental condition. Such treatment shall be administered skillfully, safely and humanely, with respect for the patient's dignity and personal integrity, and in the least restrictive conditions which are consistent with his security needs. 22 Id. at Sec. 8.03(3). 23 The second consent decree, entered in January 1975, ordered the defendants to submit a plan describing the therapeutic, educational, vocational, and avocational programs to be offered at the Treatment Center. It also ordered the commonwealth to develop a short-term release program whereby patients would be allowed to partake in outside activities. Shortly after this decree was entered, the case was transferred to Judge Garrity, who oversaw the litigation with skill and diligence for the next five years. During this period, he entered a decree which provided that the Treatment Center would move into a new facility to be constructed at the Bridgewater correctional complex. Some two years later, in 1978, Judge Garrity ordered the defendants to promulgate regulations for a furlough program. 5 24 In a routine reshuffling of the docket, the case was transferred to Judge McNaught in 1979. It remained under his careful supervision until its completion. None of the orders issued by Judge McNaught have any real bearing on the interpretation to be accorded the consent decrees here at issue. We say this despite our awareness that the parties dispute when the original case was formally closed: appellants argue that it ended in September 1986 while appellees place the time of termination in late 1989. We decline to enter this Serbonian bog, believing the date of closure to be immaterial for our purposes. 25