HARTFORD — -
After closing arguments Tuesday that explored issues such as medical ethics, prison security and First Amendment and privacy rights, a judge will now decide if prison officials may continue to force-feed hunger-striking inmate William Coleman.
Coleman, a native of Liverpool, England, is challenging the Department of Correction's bid to make permanent a temporary injunction that Superior Court Judge James T. Graham issued in January 2008 that allows the state to feed Coleman forcibly.
Coleman was convicted in 2005 of raping his wife, a conviction that he says was unjust. He has exhausted almost all of his appeals.
Coleman, who is scheduled to be released in December 2012, insists that he is not asking for any specific remedy for his own case, but is protesting what he calls a corrupt judicial system.
Since a five-day hearing that ended in February, lawyers for Coleman and the correction department have filed extensive briefs, and last week they were called in unexpectedly by Graham to make closing oral arguments.
Graham said Tuesday that he would rule on the case in the "near future," but did not set a deadline.
Coleman, who attended and testified at the hearing earlier this year, watched closing arguments through a video feed to Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center in the Uncasville section of Montville, where he is being held.
Coleman started his hunger strike in September 2007, eventually dropping from 237 pounds to 139 pounds.
He initially stopped eating solid food, but continued to take liquids, including water, milk and juice. On the one-year anniversary of his protest, he stopped all liquids, and within days prison medical officials said that he was in danger of permanent injury or death.
Having obtained the temporary injunction, prison officials ordered that Coleman be restrained and given artificial hydration and electrolytes intravenously, the first of 10 sessions. On Sept. 23 and 27, 2008, Coleman was restrained as a doctor inserted a tube through his nose and into his stomach to feed him.
The procedures stopped when Coleman agreed to take liquids and a nutritional drink.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, which is representing Coleman, he also was force-fed in April. David McGuire, an ACLU lawyer, said that Coleman is currently taking liquids, including a nutritional supplement.
In closing arguments Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Ann Lynch said that the correction department has an obligation to prevent what she called inmate suicides. "He's asking the court to allow him to starve himself to death in prison," she said.
If the protest continued, it could create security problems for the prison system, she said. Copy-cat hunger strikers could emerge, taxing prison resources. If Coleman died, protests or even riots could erupt if other prisoners felt that the department had been indifferent to the well-being of an inmate, Lynch said.
William E. Murray, of Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge, who made closing arguments on behalf of Coleman, said that his client is exercising his First Amendment rights and has a privacy right to refuse medical treatment.
"You should let Bill Coleman be," he told the court.
Murray said there was no concrete evidence that a hunger striker's death would cause problems that the correction department couldn't control, pointing out that order was maintained when the state executed an inmate in 2005.
Lynch said there already has been a copy-cat case; Murray said that showed the risk was low considering that Coleman has been on his hunger strike for more than two years.
Graham also asked numerous questions about the ethical implications of a doctor's performing a medical procedure that a patient did not want. Coleman's attorneys have cited the international declarations of Tokyo and Malta, both approved by the American Medical Association, that say doctors should not force-feed patients against their will.
Lynch said those declarations do not have the force of law. Ethics need to be considered in the context of a prison setting, she said, adding that an association of correctional medical doctors deemed force-feeding appropriate.
If Graham allows the force-feeding to continue, Coleman's attorneys have asked for guidelines to be imposed, including videotaping of procedures, allowing Coleman to consult with a doctor who has no connection to the correction department and prohibiting prison officials from retaliating against him in an effort to force him to end his hunger strike.
Coleman, a native of Liverpool, England, is challenging the Department of Correction's bid to make permanent a temporary injunction that Superior Court Judge James T. Graham issued in January 2008 that allows the state to feed Coleman forcibly.
Coleman was convicted in 2005 of raping his wife, a conviction that he says was unjust. He has exhausted almost all of his appeals.
Coleman, who is scheduled to be released in December 2012, insists that he is not asking for any specific remedy for his own case, but is protesting what he calls a corrupt judicial system.
Since a five-day hearing that ended in February, lawyers for Coleman and the correction department have filed extensive briefs, and last week they were called in unexpectedly by Graham to make closing oral arguments.
Graham said Tuesday that he would rule on the case in the "near future," but did not set a deadline.
Coleman, who attended and testified at the hearing earlier this year, watched closing arguments through a video feed to Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center in the Uncasville section of Montville, where he is being held.
Coleman started his hunger strike in September 2007, eventually dropping from 237 pounds to 139 pounds.
He initially stopped eating solid food, but continued to take liquids, including water, milk and juice. On the one-year anniversary of his protest, he stopped all liquids, and within days prison medical officials said that he was in danger of permanent injury or death.
Having obtained the temporary injunction, prison officials ordered that Coleman be restrained and given artificial hydration and electrolytes intravenously, the first of 10 sessions. On Sept. 23 and 27, 2008, Coleman was restrained as a doctor inserted a tube through his nose and into his stomach to feed him.
The procedures stopped when Coleman agreed to take liquids and a nutritional drink.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, which is representing Coleman, he also was force-fed in April. David McGuire, an ACLU lawyer, said that Coleman is currently taking liquids, including a nutritional supplement.
In closing arguments Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Ann Lynch said that the correction department has an obligation to prevent what she called inmate suicides. "He's asking the court to allow him to starve himself to death in prison," she said.
If the protest continued, it could create security problems for the prison system, she said. Copy-cat hunger strikers could emerge, taxing prison resources. If Coleman died, protests or even riots could erupt if other prisoners felt that the department had been indifferent to the well-being of an inmate, Lynch said.
William E. Murray, of Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge, who made closing arguments on behalf of Coleman, said that his client is exercising his First Amendment rights and has a privacy right to refuse medical treatment.
"You should let Bill Coleman be," he told the court.
Murray said there was no concrete evidence that a hunger striker's death would cause problems that the correction department couldn't control, pointing out that order was maintained when the state executed an inmate in 2005.
Lynch said there already has been a copy-cat case; Murray said that showed the risk was low considering that Coleman has been on his hunger strike for more than two years.
Graham also asked numerous questions about the ethical implications of a doctor's performing a medical procedure that a patient did not want. Coleman's attorneys have cited the international declarations of Tokyo and Malta, both approved by the American Medical Association, that say doctors should not force-feed patients against their will.
Lynch said those declarations do not have the force of law. Ethics need to be considered in the context of a prison setting, she said, adding that an association of correctional medical doctors deemed force-feeding appropriate.
If Graham allows the force-feeding to continue, Coleman's attorneys have asked for guidelines to be imposed, including videotaping of procedures, allowing Coleman to consult with a doctor who has no connection to the correction department and prohibiting prison officials from retaliating against him in an effort to force him to end his hunger strike.
The prison is only doing this to save their butts because DOC and JUD treats the prisoners like animals every other day.
TLeader (11/11/2009, 11:52 AM )