A federal judge has granted the state's request to end a 30-year-old consent decree requiring it to upgrade support services for more than 730 people with developmental disabilities who used to live at the Pineland facility in New Gloucester.
U.S. District Court Judge George Singal officially ended the Pineland consent degree today. Last month, Maine Attorney General Janet Mills argued that the state had gone above and beyond its obligations to serve the population. Gerald Petruccelli, a lawyer representing former Pineland residents, argued for keeping the decree in place.
In his decision, Singal found that the state has complied with the decree. The goal of the consent decree was to ensure that clients could get adequate services in the community, rather than in institutions such as Pineland, which closed in 1996.