ABSTRACT
In the spring of 1974, the plaintiffs’ lawyers put aside skirmishes with DMH to organize the second Willowbrook trial, seeking permanent relief and a new system of care. Several experts in mental disabilities helped plaintiffs rework their argument. Sidney Lecker, director of a mental health clinic, suggested a concept of “mental starvation.” Plaintiffs’ final effort to enlarge the concept of protection from harm relied on the anti-institutional principles of normalization. Plaintiffs’ closing point was that community care would be far cheaper than institutional care and all the requisite funds were already available to the Department of Mental Hygiene. Linda Glenn’s before-and-after Nebraska photographs seem to be illustrations for a position, not data for a conclusion. By the same token, Earl Butterfield’s testimony on the superiority of foster care to institutional care rested on thin data: The foster care success stories were about the high-functioning retarded, while the Willow- brook class was composed of the low-functioning retarded.
