COFAR blog

The late United States District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro, who paved the way for improved care for thousands of persons with developmental disabilities in Massachusetts, was honored on June 7 in a memorial service at the Moakley federal courthouse in Boston.

From 1972 through 1993, Judge Tauro oversaw Ricci v. Okin, a combined class-action lawsuit first brought by the late activist Benjamin Ricci over the conditions at the Belchertown State School. The lawsuit resulted in a consent decree that included the then Belchertown, Fernald, Wrentham, Dever, Monson, and Templeton state schools.

Tauro, who died in November at the age of 87, had visited Belchertown and the other Massachusetts facilities in the early 1970s to observe the conditions first hand. He noted two decades later in his 1993 disengagement order from the consent decree that the legal process had resulted in major capital and staffing improvements to the facilities and a program of community placements.

Together, those improvements and placements had “taken people with mental retardation from the snake pit, human warehouse environment of two decades ago, to the point where Massachusetts now has a system of care and habilitation that is probably second to none anywhere in the world,” Tauro wrote.

Among those attending the June 7 memorial service were former Governor Michael Dukakis, who signed the consent decree in 1975 on behalf of the State of Massachusetts, and Beryl Cohen, the original attorney for the plaintiffs. 

Speakers at the June 7 service included U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Senior U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor, Governor Dukakis, and Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert D. Manfred Jr. Manfred, an attorney, clerked for Tauro after graduating from law school.

Also attending the service were Ed and Gail Orzechowski, advocates for persons with developmental disabilities. Ed Orzechowski’s 2016 book, You’ll Like it Here, chronicled the life of the late Donald Vitkus, a survivor of the Belchertown school.

In March, as Ed Orzechowski received the 2019 Dr. Benjamin Ricci Commemorative award from the Department of Developmental Services, he credited three men with improving the lives of persons with developmental disabilities in Massachusetts — Benjamin Ricci, Beryl Cohen, and Judge Tauro.

Ed Orzechowski (left) with former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who signed the 1975 consent decree in the landmark Ricci v. Okin lawsuit overseen by Judge Tauro.

Gail Orzechowski, an advocate for the developmentally disabled (left), with Beryl Cohen, the attorney for the plaintiffs in the 1972 class action lawsuit, Ricci v. Okin. Gail’s sister, Carol, is a former resident of the Belchertown School.

A written remembrance of Judge Tauro in the memorial service program.