Cite as: 509 U. S. 312 (1993)
Souter, J., dissenting
Handbook of Mental Retardation 397-412; Gardner, Use of Behavior Therapy with the Mentally Retarded, in Psychiatric Approaches to Mental Retardation 250-275 (F. Menolascino ed. 1970). Like drug therapy, psychiatric therapy for the mentally retarded can be, and has been, misused. In one recent case, a Federal District Court found that "aversive procedures [including seclusion and physical restraints were] being inappropriately used with no evidence for their effectiveness and no relationship between the choice of the procedure and the analysis of the cause of the problem[,] . . . plac[ing] clients at extreme risk for maltreatment." Lelsz v. Kavanagh, 673 F. Supp. 828, 850 (ND Tex.) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), rev'd on unrelated grounds, 824 F. 2d 372 (CA5 1987). Invasive behavior therapy for the mentally retarded, finally, is often employed together with drug therapy. See McNally, supra, at 413-423; Mulick, Hammer, & Dura, supra, at 397-412.
The same sorts of published authorities on which the Court relies, in sum, refute the contention that "[t]he prevailing methods of treatment for the mentally retarded, as a general rule, are much less invasive than are those given the mentally ill." Ante, at 324.6 The available literature indicates that psychotropic drugs and invasive therapy are routinely administered to the retarded as well as the mentally
6 I also see little point in the Court's excursion into the historical difference in treatment between so-called "idiots," and so-called "lunatics." See ante, at 326. Surely the Court does not intend to suggest that the irrational and scientifically unsupported beliefs of pre-19th-century England can support any distinction in treatment between the mentally ill and the mentally retarded today. At that time, "lunatics" were "[s]een as demonically possessed or the products of parental sin [and] were often punished or left to perish." See S. Herr, Rights and Advocacy for Retarded People 9 (1983). The primary purpose of an adjudication of "idiocy" appears to have been to "depriv[e] [an individual] of [his] property and its profits." Id., at 10. Those without wealth "were dealt with like other destitute or vagrant persons through workhouses and houses of correction." Id., at 11.
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