Problems in Implementing the Right to Treatment in Alabama: The Wyatt V. Stickney Case

The author was mental health commissioner in Alabama when the best known of the right-to-treatment cases, Wyatt v. Stickney, was filed in 1970. He describes the mental health department's response to the suit and discusses at length the staffing standards set by the court. He suggests not only that such standards are almost impossible to meet, but also that they are too restrictive to serve the best interests of the patients. He compares the Wyatt decision with the decision in Burnham v. Georgia, in which the court ruled that there is no constitutional right to treatment.