Deaf Man Might Be Released : Courts: A 38-year-old who after alleged misdiagnosis spent many years in state hospitals could be allowed to live with his parents.

For nearly 30 years, Alberto Valdez has wandered the bleak halls of state psychiatric institutions, a deaf man without language, victimized by misunderstanding and misdiagnosis, family and friends say. Finally, it appears he is headed for home.

Attorneys working on Valdez’s behalf said Friday that they have designed a plan that would enable him to move into his parents’ Santa Ana home and have what he has craved for decades: a relatively independent life far from the psychotic world in which he has been trapped.

Many arrangements must still be worked out, and the plan must win the approval of a Superior Court judge before Valdez, 38, can be released from Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk. But Barbara G. McDonald, a Carlsbad attorney who has worked on Valdez’s case for many years, said she is “very, very optimistic” that he will soon be released.

“Our real goal for Alberto is for him to have the capacity to live independently,” McDonald said. “He has the personal goal of someday holding a job and getting married and having his own family. That’s always a possibility and something everyone hopes will occur.”

“It’s about time,” said Valdez’s sister, Lupe Valdez, 38, who successfully sued the state in 1977, claiming her brother had been misdiagnosed and unnecessarily held in state institutions, where he could not get appropriate care.

“It’s great. He’s so excited. He can’t wait to get home. I just want him to have a little tranquility and peace, without having to see people go haywire around him all the time” in mental institutions.

Experts have never decided whether Valdez was born deaf or whether he lost his hearing after suffering a high fever when he was 18 months old, but he never learned to speak. He uses a few basic hand signs, gestures and facial expressions to communicate. He has lived in mental institutions since he was 8 years old: first at Fairview State Hospital, then Camarillo and Atascadero, the state hospital for the criminally insane. For the past 10 years, he has been at Norwalk.

His troubles began in 1958, when a low score on an IQ test prompted a diagnosis of mental retardation. Other tests since then have produced conflicting results: environmentally deprived, developmentally disabled and above-average intelligence.

State officials considered him troublesome, pointing to a series of aggressive outbursts against other patients when he has been hospitalized and against friends and family on the few times he has been released to go home. But McDonald and others argue that the outbursts are not a sign of mental trouble, just the pent-up frustration of a sensitive man who never had enough exposure to sign language to learn to communicate.

“Alberto has been stuck with whatever resources the state could provide, and that was these hospitals,” McDonald said. “His family wasn’t in the position to provide much more. I knew that until he got money, there was no chance for him.”

And he got the money. McDonald helped negotiate a May, 1988, settlement of Lupe Valdez’s lawsuit that should cover Alberto Valdez’s needs from the time he is released from state hospitals until his death, McDonald said.

The state admitted no wrongdoing in settling the suit, but it purchased an annuity that will pay $60,000 for each the first two years, $50,000 a year for the following three years, then $30,000 a year after that, McDonald said. The money will be handled by a court-appointed conservator.

When the Times reported the settlement in 1988, attorneys said it would require approval by the state Legislature. But the funds were not allocated until this August.

Ken Johns, Valdez’s court-appointed guardian, said that the state has “bent over backwards” to find the right placement for Valdez but that his “unique” needs have proven difficult to serve. Johns has recently suggested that Valdez be transfered to Napa State Hospital, which has a program for the mentally ill deaf. But Valdez’s family opposes it. Johns has not yet been briefed on the proposal for Valdez’s home release, but he said he hopes it is “comprehensive.”

“We don’t want to just give him up (to private conservators) without making sure it’s the best situation for him,” Johns said.

McDonald and John P. Deily, an attorney who has been helping design a conservatorship to look afer Valdez once he is released, said the judge can approve the plan without the public guardian’s consent. But they said they would prefer that all parties agree to the proposal. A hearing is set for Nov. 8.

“We all realize the trouble Alberto’s had, and we want the best for him,” Deily said. “The trouble is, there’s no place for deaf people who are indigent. The only alternative is state institutions. It’s clear to me he just wants to go home. He loves his family.”

Current plans call for Valdez to live with his parents, Margarita and Isabel Valdez, and to have a companion who can use sign language to help him develop his rudimentary communication skills and to convey his needs to the speaking world, McDonald said. He would have two conservators: one to pay all his bills from the annuity fund and another to take care of all the other details of his life.

He would take classes in independent living--learning such basics as how to get around on buses, keep a bank account, cook, clean and grocery shop--from a private tutor or at a school that specializes in such training, she said.

And hopefully, McDonald said, Valdez could hold a job. He has worked successfully as a busboy, gardener, painter and furniture mover in supervised work programs off the state hospital grounds, she said.

“He’s very reliable and meticulous,” he said. “He loves order and schedules. When we visit him and he knows he has to be at work soon, he starts fidgeting and pointing at his watch. He takes it very seriously.”

Valdez’s parents do not know sign language, but Lupe Valdez said that she knows a little and that her brother, who lives nearby, is studying hard in preparation for Alberto’s return. The homecoming will be joyful, she said, but tinged with culture shock as well.

“My mom’s a little worried,” she said. “She cooks Mexican food and she wonders, will he like it? He’s so used to that hospital food, for 30 years. That’s a long time.”

BACKGROUND

Alberto Valdez, a deaf man who never learned to speak, has spent nearly 30 of his 38 years in mental institutions. His friends and family say he was misdiagnosed and should come home, and a legal settlement last year gave him the funds to do so. Now attorneys are trying to work it out. Next month, the decision will be left to a Superior Court judge.