A more recent column on Mr. Coleman's situation follows. Given the facts I cannot understand why the appeal is taking so long. False accusations during custody hearings by bitter ex's are prolific and how a conviction was registered is questionable.MJM
Op-Ed: Hearing William Coleman’s Hunger Strike by Jane Mills | September 19, 2008 8:59 AM Posted to Opinion
Photo courtesy of the DOC
Editor’s note: The views expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
Connecticut prison inmate William Coleman has been on a hunger strike for a year and started refusing liquids on Tuesday, which means without intervention, he may not make it to the weekend.
In Connecticut, where autonomy in medical decisions and free speech rights do not particularly persuade in court, the Department of Correction won the power to force-feed Coleman in January. They have not acted on it, but may before the end of this week.
National and international medical ethics standards advise against any doctor in Connecticut forcing a feeding tube down his nose against his will.
His hunger strike should be protected political speech and a private medical decision. He’s been found competent to make those decisions. His living will directs doctors not to force-feed him and they are bound by it. In fact, Coleman has met every condition under the ethical guidelines of the World Medical Association that say force-feeding protesters is unjustifiable.
In August 2007, the American Medical Association, which is a member of the World Medical Association, published a commentary saying, “physicians can and should prevent the force-feeding of competent prisoners by refusing to approve or participate.” It particularly warned doctors working in prisons to resist dual loyalties to the patient and the prison and pressure to capitulate ethical decision-making.
The University of Connecticut Health Center, which provides the doctors and nurses to Connecticut’s prisons under a state contract won’t comment on the ethical dilemma, referring even this question to the Department of Correction. It is not clear whether UConn physicians would be involved.
The ACLU has been fighting for his rights.
There is a tradition of the Irish that when gravely wronged and denied all other recourse, an Irishman might sit on the doorstep of the party who wronged him in a hunger strike that forces that party to confront his rotting Irish corpse. Who gets to say this freedom will be denied anyone?
Coleman is protesting a criminal justice system he has observed to be susceptible to wrongful convictions and is therefore a threat to the public. He says the system is easily manipulated by spouses making criminal accusations during divorce or custody proceedings, according to court papers and a personal statement publicly released. He was accused by his ex-wife of rape while they were involved in a bitter custody dispute over their two young sons. No rape kit was ever performed. He was convicted by a jury in Waterbury Superior Court in 2005 in a case that was rife with worrisome questions about thin evidence covered at the time by the press and has served over four years of an eight year prison term. He will register as a sex offender upon his release if his conviction is not overturned and if he lives to see that day. He has not seen his sons since his incarceration. He says he is innocent and the signs read clearly to him: he and others would not be in prison but for lax, cynical, and downright corrupt practices by prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys. He filed a petition of Habeas Corpus in 2005 that is still pending in Rockville Superior Court seeking his release or a new trial.
Hunger strikes are last resort free speech. They are the voice of the voiceless. They are testimony that no one has listened to every other attempt to speak. They are testament of a voice robbed of credibility. The message of hunger strikes is just that. They should be provocative, causing the so-called “system” to reflect on whether it cares about truth and justice, it’s imperatives, or whether it has forsaken its highest duties. They ask the public to stop and listen with an open mind.
Coleman might be right. Has any close observer of the courts in the state of Connecticut not found the standards for reasonable suspicion, probable cause and beyond a reasonable doubt too often suspiciously the same?
Can any competent observer not acknowledge the open secret in the courts that prosecutors pass weak cases over to judges who pass weak cases over to juries, juries often consisting of members who have no idea of this virtuoso bureaucratic insensitivity to truth? Is any competent observer who is aware of this unaware that the motive for this is not devotion to truth and justice?
William Coleman does not appear to be a man trifling with the interests of the state, he appears to be pointing to fundamental issues of free speech, autonomy and justice and he seems only to be asking that people hear what he is saying.
He will either die this week or be violated by the state if he does not choose to eat or drink. Is it right that we have nearly ignored him for a year? Do we not believe that his First Amendment right is relevant to ours, his right to refuse medical treatment the same as our Aunt Bessie’s? Are they not identical? Is this where our tax money is going? From arrest to force-feeding, dare we ask if any of this six-year ordeal has served any legitimate government purpose?
No one wants William Coleman to die. So shall we allow the state to quash his speech and steal his medical choices or shall we urge him to eat so we can hear him out and look closely at his claims? The following are, in part, my comments left on the New Haven Advocate site. http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/article_print.cfm?aid=10323 This is an unbelievable story. The man has been painted as an evil abuser yet no evidence has been produced to prove his guilt other than the word of his spouse. Whatever happened to "beyond a reasonable doubt." If this was the 3rd world one could better understand an "immature" justice system. What is the USA coming too - a feminist dominated and controlled justice system and government where if a female yells rape a man is already convicted. Do you know what the proportion of false allegations of abuse are during divorce compared to proven abuse? I'm appalled and disappointed. Perhaps all the evidence presented at trial paints a different picture. I hope so. The relationship Coleman had with Parle, his ex, sounds pretty dysfunctional but its a big leap from two kinky people having threesomes to rape. Given some of the statements he admitted to, particularly the washing off the ex's family in the shower, it would certainly appear he was controlling. That is grounds for "dumping" him by his ex. but a far cry from rape. Having no knowledge of all the facts of the case gives one less than adequate insight. Given the ongoing false allegations that occur ( this week's edition is the female McCain campaign volunteer Ashley Todd blaming a non-existant black Obama supporter for a viscious assault comes to mind) . The http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/ reports from the book "Until Proven Innocent," a painstaking study of the Duke Lacrosse case, Stuart Taylor and Professor K.C. Johnson examined all of the major studies dealing with false claims of sexual assault and explained that the exact number of false claims is elusive but "the standard assertion by feminists that only 2 percent" of sexual assault claims "are false, which traces to Susan Brownmiller's 1975 book "Against Our Will," is without empirical foundation and belied by a wealth of empirical data. These data suggest that at least 9 percent and probably closer to half" of all sexual assault claims "are false . . . ." (Page 374.)" The intense pressure and stress of a divorce does create many falsehoods about abuse. I have no sympathy for cowardly rapists and if Coleman did the deed he deserves what he gets - but if it is a "setup" one has to believe there is something very wrong in CT. It will be interesting to see how he makes out with the torture allegations and the writ of habeus corpus. Posted by Mike Murphy on 10.28.08 at 12.36
New Haven Advocate
Starvation Diet
Convicted rapist Bill Coleman claims he's innocent, and he's starving himself to death to prove it.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
By Daniel D'Ambrosio
David McGuire, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, received a panicked call last Tuesday from hunger-striking inmate Bill Coleman in Suffield's McDougall-Walker prison.
Down from 250 pounds to 128 pounds, Coleman had been moved from his room in the infirmary at Osborn prison in Somers to isolation at McDougall-Walker. Prison officials had begun force-feeding Coleman through an intravenous drip at Osborn in late September.
A British citizen in the country illegally, Coleman began refusing solid food on Sept. 16, 2007, to protest what he claims was his wrongful conviction in 2005 of raping his wife. This September, on the one-year anniversary of his hunger strike, he began refusing liquids as well.
Coleman, 48, told McGuire he'd had a tough night at McDougall-Walker.
"He was cuffed up, shackled up, brought into the hospital unit and put in isolation," says McGuire. "There are orders that he has no inmate contact."
Two days later, McGuire received another distressed call from Coleman, who said prison staff had unexpectedly taken him to a "medical appointment" he was unaware of, where he was strapped down and force-fed through a tube inserted in his nose and into his stomach.
Coleman has not outlined any demands that would end his hunger strike. Instead, he maintains he is exercising his free-speech right to protest what he says is Connecticut's broken and corrupt judicial system. Coleman was convicted solely on the testimony of his ex-wife, without forensic evidence, and no witnesses were called on his behalf. Because of the continuing support of his family in England, his story has drawn international, as well as national, attention, and his ex-wife says she is being victimized all over again by his manipulation of the press.
Force-Feeding
In testimony before the Superior Court last January when the state Department of Correction was arguing for a temporary injunction to force-feed Coleman, Suzanne Ducate, DOC director of psychiatry, testified that a nasogastric tube is the "preferred means" of feeding an inmate on a hunger strike.
She had been involved in ending six hunger strikes in the Texas prison system, where she previously worked. Ducate said the tube, inserted into a sedated prisoner, piped "nourishing liquid" directly into the stomach.
"It is not a medically difficult procedure, and, in her experience, inmates who are so fed begin to eat normally soon thereafter," wrote Superior Court Judge James T. Graham in his decision granting the temporary injunction.
But Coleman described a far different experience to McGuire. He said he was not sedated for the procedure, that his arms and legs were strapped down, and that a plastic mesh was secured over his chest and shoulders, leaving him able to move only his head.
Coleman said cameras to videotape the procedure were turned off by Dr. Edward Blanchette, the DOC's clinical director, after things started to go wrong. He said Blanchette held his head while the tube was inserted in his nose. On the first attempt to insert the tube, it developed a kink and hung up in his nasal passage.
"He was screaming in pain, begging them to stop," says Patrick Doyle, education program manager for the ACLU-CT. "Since the procedure, Mr. Coleman has been sneezing up blood."
The medical staff was able to successfully insert the feeding tube, although Coleman claims the procedure remained torturous.
"I could feel it going down my throat and into my stomach. I was gagging, choking and vomiting," he said in a statement released by the ACLU-CT.
Coleman said the cameras weren't turned back on until the feeding was completed after about 30 minutes, and the room was cleaned up. When McGuire visited him later that day, he said Coleman still had vomit on him.
Coleman's brother, Geoff, sent the Advocate an e-mail when he learned of the nasogastric feeding, calling it a "brutal and barbaric act."
"I can never understand how a trained medical person can inflict this suffering on someone who does not wish it to happen," wrote Geoff Coleman. "This has set the medical profession back 200 years and puts the already corrupt justice system (in Connecticut) back to the stone-age."
Brian Garnett, spokesman for the DOC, says he could not address a particular inmate's medical or mental health condition because of confidentiality concerns.
In earlier comments, Garnett had characterized Coleman's hunger strike as the most prolonged in anyone's memory in Connecticut, and said the DOC had no choice but to begin feeding him.
"In a very general sense, without talking about particular cases, inmates are placed in our care and custody by courts," said Garnett. "We have a legal as well as moral obligation to preserve that person's life."
But Coleman says he has a constitutional right to starve himself as a form of political speech, and the ACLU-CT agrees. In January, the civil rights organization will argue against the DOC's attempt to get a permanent injunction to force-feed Coleman, and will seek to lift the temporary injunction.
"We're arguing for his right to refuse medical treatment as a competent person," says McGuire. "We're arguing for his free-speech right, a form of political speech."
Civil vs. Criminal
Coleman's ex-wife Jillian Parle is also a British citizen. She is living and working in the Waterbury area, raising the couple's two young sons. I reached Parle, 45, on the telephone at work. Although reluctant to say anything on the record, she did send me a statement via e-mail.
"The continued coverage of this story is re-victimizing my children and myself and allows the defendant to continually harass me through the media. I have received calls at home and at work and the facts about the assault have been printed several times, both of which are harmful to me," wrote Parle. "I am concerned that the media seems to be accepting as gospel the defendant's remarks and recitation of the facts of this case; yet he is a convicted felon who's attempting to manipulate the system through his acts."
Parle did not address her ex-husband's hunger strike.
The gist of Coleman's protest is his contention that Connecticut's criminal justice system can be manipulated to serve the purposes of those locked in civil litigation. Put simply, Coleman claims his wife made a false allegation against him to beat him in divorce court, where he had filed for sole custody of their two young sons. He points out that she went to the police three days after he filed his motion.
"What Connecticut citizens should know, even if they don't care about my children and me, is that they are one 'falsely accused' arrest themselves away from my nightmare," wrote Coleman in a statement.
Coleman was convicted of sexual assault in a spousal relationship and other charges in February 2005 after a jury of four men and two women deliberated for nearly four days. He was sentenced that May to 15 years, suspended after eight years, meaning he would be released on the last day of 2012. Coleman passed a lie detector test, but the tests are not admissible as evidence in Connecticut.
Waterbury State's Attorney John A. Connelly, whose office prosecuted Coleman, says only that the jury "heard the evidence and reached a verdict." He says it is not unusual for a rape conviction to be based solely on the victim's testimony.
Oddly, Coleman did not take the stand himself in his criminal trial, and no witnesses were called on his behalf by his defense attorney, Michael Gannon. Gannon's license to practice law was suspended in June 2007, and he was placed on a further administrative suspension this year for not paying fees required from all attorneys.
Asked about the trial, Coleman declined to comment, saying it was "pertinent to current legal proceedings." The legal proceeding to which Coleman refers is the only one he has left: a pending writ of habeas corpus filed by the Office of the Chief Public Defender in Rocky Hill. Coleman lost an appeal of his conviction in a September 2007 decision. The following month the Connecticut Supreme Court declined to take up his case.
A habeas corpus petition, which has roots in English law going back to the 14th century, must show that a legal or factual error was made in the trial. The U.S. Supreme Court has characterized the writ of habeas corpus as "the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action."
The odds are against Coleman, given the generally low success rate of the "great writ."
Request Denied
My contact with Coleman came solely through letters conveyed to me by McGuire, who visits Coleman regularly as his attorney. I had arranged through the Department of Correction to interview Coleman in person on Sept. 30, but, the day before, received a call telling me the interview was off.
I was told only that a high-ranking official in the DOC had decided over the weekend that it would not be a good idea to allow the interview to go forward. My request to view the videotapes of Coleman's force-feedings was also refused.
"At this point the videotapes are not going to be available for viewing for the reason this is an ongoing security operation," says Garnett. "We never want to tip our hand about how we do things."
McGuire described Coleman's room at Osborn as measuring about 8 feet by 10 feet, with drab concrete walls lined to simulate cinder blocks, a stainless-steel sink and toilet, and a wall-mounted C-shaped "desk" stacked with files and paper.
"He's a prolific writer," says McGuire. "He has written a lot of stuff for me."
McGuire sat in one of two chairs in the room when he visited his client, glancing out the room's single window to the prison recreation yard beyond. In a corner of the room was Coleman's twin-sized bed with "DOC Infirmary Unit 3" written in marker on the pillow case, and four brown leather restraints for Coleman's hands and feet. This is where officials strapped him down.
Coleman says prison staff treated him professionally during the IV drip feedings at Osborn, and he did not struggle with them.
"Even though they follow the 'illegal' court order issued in Connecticut they nevertheless are very respectful," wrote Coleman in a letter. "My arms are placed in restraining straps and I lie on the bed for between 3 to 5 hours while fluids enter me."
Before each videotaped session, Coleman made a statement for the camera.
"My name is William Coleman. I'm a competent adult. I do not consent to this force feeding, which violates international law."
A Marriage Unravels
In August 2004, after a nine-day divorce trial in which Bill Coleman represented himself, Superior Court Judge Lynda B. Munro ordered the dissolution of the marriage, granting Parle sole legal custody of their children.
The couple's life together had been tumultuous, as detailed in the decision written by Judge Munro. Coleman and Parle had immigrated to the United States in 1988 on temporary visas to work at a camp in Hebron after Coleman divorced his first wife. The couple returned to Liverpool, England, their hometown, in 1994 to marry.
After a summer at the camp, Coleman held a variety of jobs, including management trainee at Dairy Mart, before landing a position in 1996 as the head women's soccer coach at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain. Coleman had played soccer all of his life, including years as a semi-professional player in England. Parle got a job at a family firm in the Waterbury area.
In December 1998, Parle returned to England after learning her father was gravely ill, only to find out that he was already dead. The decision was made by her family not to tell her until she arrived. Coleman was left alone with the couple's two young children, one only six months old, and soon became overwhelmed.
He claims it was this incident that sent his previously happy relationship with Parle into a tailspin. He admits his conduct at the time — insisting that Parle return to Connecticut eight days before her father's funeral, and raging against her family because of the way they had handled the death — was wrong. Parle said her homecoming was a nightmare
"The plaintiff (Parle) stated that the defendant (Coleman) kicked her, spit on her and punched her, made her crawl outside on the deck and take showers to 'rub her family off her skin,'" wrote Judge Munro. "The defendant denied all of that other than insisting she take the shower to rub her family off her skin."
Against this background, the couple's marriage slogged on. In February 1999, after a short stint in a women's shelter, Parle and her mother, who had come to be with her, took the kids back to England without telling Coleman.
Coleman called Parle almost daily, alternately begging her to come back and suggesting they should get divorced, while also, unbeknownst to Parle, inquiring through the Hague Convention about forcibly getting his kids back.
Parle finally agreed to return, but was refused entry into the country at JFK, later re-entering the country through Canada. It was August 1999. She went back to work at her previous employer, and moved back in with Coleman.
All was not well. In 2000, Coleman's contract with CCSU was not renewed after it was revealed he'd had an affair with an assistant coach, and that his immigration status was illegal. (If Coleman survives and is eventually released from prison, it's almost certain he'll be deported.)
After his affair was revealed, the couple separated and Coleman moved to Newport, R.I., where he began working with abused and neglected children and teaching parenting groups and anger management classes for an area agency. (Go figure.)
Parle brought the boys to Newport for a visit every weekend, and, working steadily, was able to buy a house in Waterbury. She started a relationship of her own with another man around July 2002, just before Coleman decided he would move back in with Parle and the children some time in late August, 2002, according to Munro.
Learning of her relationship with another man, Coleman alternated between imploring his wife to choose him and their boys over her lover, and asking her to sign a letter "resigning" from their family. By mid-September, Coleman had decided he would take the boys and return to England.
In the days leading up to the alleged rape, Parle's car had broken down. Coleman at first refused to pick her up from the repair shop, but then showed up at the same time as friends she had called for a ride. They called the police when they saw the mood Coleman was in, but the responding officers determined Parle felt safe going home.
Once home, Coleman told Parle he was filing for sole custody of their children and taking them back to England. Later that day, the family went for ice cream, meeting a friend to look at Parle's car. The next day, the couple drove to the Waterbury courthouse, where Coleman filed papers seeking sole custody. Over the next two days, Oct. 1 and Oct. 2, Coleman drove Parle to and from work, and searched for a bunk-bed for the boys, according to Judge Munro's account.
The next morning, Parle told a friend that Coleman had raped her. She invited the friend to dinner that night, and testified later at the divorce trial the friend left around 10:30 p.m. Coleman claimed the friend stayed late into the night and that the three of them had sex. The friend testified she had no memory of what happened after dinner that night.
On Oct. 4, Parle went to the police and Coleman was arrested. Family Relations Counselor Sylvia Richard wrote in a report for Judge Munro that Parle said Coleman had "held her hostage" and sexually assaulted her during that week. Coleman denied it.
"The alleged sexual assault remains a he-said, she-said situation, as Ms. Coleman did not go for a medical exam subsequent to the abuse," wrote Richard. "It remains difficult to ascertain which client is actually telling the truth."
In a story following Coleman's guilty verdict, the Waterbury Republican-American reported the case had "hinged on the victim's testimony," and quoted the prosecuting attorney as saying the absence of forensic evidence "is not necessarily conclusive to whether or not a crime took place."
Richard's report for Munro included the fact that both Coleman and Parle acknowledged they shared a "non-traditional intimate sexual relationship where three-way sexual encounters were a fairly common practice for them." At trial, Parle contended she had been repulsed by the three-way sex and more, including pornography. But Munro remained unconvinced.
"After listening to all of the evidence as to these three-party sexual encounters by these parties with others, the court concludes that both parties were consenting adults," wrote Munro.
United Nations Called In
On Monday, the national ACLU together with the ACLU-CT, called on the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture to review last week's forced nasogastric feeding of Coleman that allegedly went so wrong. The UN Commission on Human Rights established the special rapporteurs in 1985 to investigate claims of torture around the world.
In a written statement, Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU Human Rights Program said "brutally force-feeding" Coleman violated his basic human rights and his right to make a political statement by refusing food. He said he is hopeful the Special Rapporteur will take up the case, and called on the DOC to immediately implement any suggestions the UN agency makes.
"Bill's protest is passive, his treatment is aggressive," wrote Geoff Coleman in his e-mail to the Advocate. "Shame on the people who have violated his rights, his mind and his body, shame on a justice system that fails the very people it sets out to protect."
editor@newhavenadvocate.com
© 2008 New Haven Advocate
Posts
