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| Starvation rights at center of trial |
| By The Hartford Courant |
| Published: 01/27/2009 |
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CONNECTICUT - For 16 months, inmate William Coleman has been wasting away in state prisons on a hunger strike. A man who once carried more than 250 pounds on his 5-foot-10 frame, the former soccer coach lost about 125 pounds, sustaining himself on liquids, before alarmed Department of Correction officials restrained and force-fed him. Coleman, 48, was convicted of spousal rape in 2005 and sentenced to eight years in prison. He says he does not want to die. But he insists he is willing to starve himself to death to protest what he describes as a corrupt judicial system. Correction officials have no intention of letting that happen. In a Superior Court hearing that begins Thursday in Hartford, Judge James T. Graham will hear arguments that pit First Amendment and privacy rights — including the right to refuse medical treatment — against the state's interest in preventing suicide, maintaining control of its prisons and resisting inmate coercion. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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