Landmark ruling
June 22 is the 15th anniversary of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Georgia case about the rights of disabled people. The court rejected forced institutionalization of people with mental disabilities who are able to live in community settings. But Georgia is still struggling to comply with the law. Among the key developments:
7/26/1990: Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 signed into law.
5/11/1995: Lawsuit filed on behalf of Lois Curtis, a mildly mentally disabled woman with schizophrenia, challenging her continued confinement in a state institution in Atlanta. A second plaintiff, Elaine Wilson, who also had a mild developmental disability and a personality disorder, is added to the lawsuit a month later. In court papers, they are identified as L.C. and E.W. The defendant was Tommy Olmstead, then the state's human resources commissioner.
6/22/1999: In a landmark ruling on the rights of people with disabilities, the U.S. Supreme Court affirms in Olmstead v. L.C. that the ADA prohibits institutionalization of people whose disabilities can be reasonably accommodated in a community setting.
5/1/2001: Atlanta Legal Aid Society and others file a complaint that the state was failing to treat disabled people in the most integrated setting appropriate. Hundreds of people with developmental disabilities were confined in state psychiatric hospitals.
1/7/2007: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution begins a yearlong series of stories, "A Hidden Shame," exposing chaotic and dangerous conditions in the state's mental hospitals. Conditions contributed to the suspicious deaths of at least 115 patients from 2002 to 2006, the AJC reported. In another 194 cases, hospital workers physically or sexually abused patients.
4/19/2007: The U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division notifies Gov. Sonny Perdue's office it was opening an investigation of conditions at state psychiatric hospitals.
6/4/2008: In the first of a series of blistering reports, the Justice Department details "critically deficient" conditions at Georgia Regional Hospital/Atlanta. It gives the state 13 pages of necessary corrective measures.
6/12/2008: Perdue recommends cutting $8.4 million from mental health services for children to cover deficits in other social services programs.
7/1/2008: Perdue announces the state had reached an agreement to help move mentally ill and developmentally disabled Georgians out of the state's psychiatric hospitals and into community settings.
1/15/2009: Georgia signs agreement with the Justice Department to take 345 steps within a year to improve the state's seven psychiatric hospitals.
9/30/2009: After mental health advocates complain the agreement is inadequate, U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell withholds approval of the proposed settlement. State and federal negotiators resume talks.
11/1/2009: Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, the state's first psychiatric hospital, stops accepting new patients following a federal inspection that found inadequate treatment, dangerous conditions and violence among patients.
1/28/2010: In a 700-page complaint, the Justice Department contends the state has moved too slowly to overhaul mental health services and asks a judge to appoint an independent monitor to direct the shift in state psychiatric hospitals.
6/30/2010: After an unsuccessful round of negotiations with the state, federal authorities ask Judge Pannell to force Georgia to make substantial improvements in its psychiatric hospitals and its community-based treatment services.
10/19/2010: To avoid a federal lawsuit and a possible takeover of its mental health system, Georgia signs a settlement agreement that calls for $77 million in new spending.
7/1/2011: Georgia's state hospitals stop admitting people with developmental disabilities.
8/28/2012: Georgia asks a federal judge to delay for one year a scheduled review by a court-appointed monitor.
5/17/2013: Concerns about quality of care at group homes and other community settings prompt the Georgia commissioner of behavioral health to impose a 45-day moratorium on moving developmentally disabled people out of state hospitals.
12/31/2013: State closes Central State Hospital nursing home that housed individuals with developmental disabilities and mental health issues.
1/7/2014: Georgia again suspends transfers of developmentally disabled people out of state hospitals.
6/22/2014: On the 15th anniversary of the Olmstead decision, almost 350 people with developmental disabilities remain in state hospitals.
7/1/2014: Deadline under the 2010 agreement for Georgia to establish a dozen crisis respite homes for people with with developmental disabilities and their families. The state also is to have resources in place for individuals to remain in their community setting.
7/1/2015: Georgia is to have transferred all state hospital patients with developmental disabilities to community settings by this date. It also is to have the capacity to provide supported housing to any of the 9,000 individuals with serious and persistent mental illness served under the agreement who need such support; and housing supports to 2,000 individuals who are deemed ineligible for any other benefits. The state also has to provide supported employment to 550 individuals.
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