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| Conn. justices to decide how state should treat ill inmates |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/25/2003 |
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Connecticut officials and human rights advocates are clashing in a public policy debate on how Connecticut should treat its mentally ill prison inmates. At issue is whether prisoners with mental illness should have the liberties afforded by the state's 1971 Patients Bill of Rights, the Journal Inquirer of Manchester reported. The bill of rights says patients in psychiatric facilities have a number of protections under the law, including the right to humane treatment, privacy, telephone calls and letter writing without restrictions. Prison officials say inmates should not be covered by those rights, and many of those rights couldn't possibly apply to prisoners. They also argue that prisons do not meet the definition of 'facilities' spelled out in state law. The state Supreme Court will hear arguments on the issue in the fall in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the estate of a paranoid schizophrenic prison inmate. Bryant Wiseman, 28, of Hartford, was serving a 10-year sentence on an attempted arson conviction when he died after being restrained by more than eight correction officers Nov. 17, 1999, at the Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown. Officers restrained him after he got into a fight with another inmate, according to the lawsuit filed by his estate last November. 'The officers and staff piled on top of Bryant, handcuffed him behind his back, put him in leg irons, savagely beat him, asphyxiated him, caused him to vomit, rendered him unconscious and comatose, and ultimately killed him,' the lawsuit says. A video camera caught much of the attempt to restrain Wiseman, though Wiseman is mainly obscured from view by the officers crowding into the room. The footage also shows the failed efforts of medical workers as they perform CPR on the unconscious Wiseman. 'It was cruelty, pure cruelty,' Wiseman's mother, Elaine Wiseman, told the Journal Inquirer. 'And if we don't stop it, it's going to happen to many, many more inmates in prison.' She said her son's death was similar to a murder. The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union, the Office of Protection and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities and representatives of the state's psychiatric community all want permission to write court briefs supporting the Wiseman family and challenging the state's position. Many of them worry that a large portion of the state's psychiatric patients, who have increasingly ended up in prisons after the state's psychiatric hospitals were shut down years ago, stand to lose some of their most basic protections if the court rules for the state. Between 12 percent and 15 percent of the state's prison population, about 2,300 to 2,800 inmates, suffer significant mental health problems, the newspaper reported. Wiseman needed regular anti-psychotic medication to prevent him from becoming paranoid, aggressive, disruptive, and often violent, the lawsuit says. He often refused to take his medicine, and two days before his death a prison doctor ordered his medication cut off when he wouldn't take the required dosage on several occasions over a two-week span, the lawsuit continues. The lawsuit refers to cutting off Wiseman's medication as a 'grave and unforgivable breach of the standard of care' that ultimately led to the episode that ended with his death. Wiseman's family sued former Correction Department Commissioner John Armstrong along with several correction officers and medical staffers on duty at Garner and the University of Connecticut Health Center, which provides medical care to prisoners. Even though the wrongful death claim remains in the lower court, the Correction Department has appealed the rights issue to the state's highest court. |
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