Less than two months after a judge made a decision that allows the Corrections Department to continue force feeding a prisoner, it was back in court Monday filing an injunction against another hunger striking prisoner.
In a lawsuit filed in Hartford Superior Court Friday, Correction officials asked for the court for permission to preserve Jason Allen’s life by administering fluids and nutrition against the inmate’s will.
A Corrections Department spokesman didn’t know enough about the situation to comment on it at this point in time.
Allen, 42, who has not been sentenced yet was charged with first-degree sexual assault and arrested April 21. According to the injunction filed in Hartford Superior Court, Allen has not taken any fluids or food since April 26. Just three days after starting his hunger strike he was rushed from Garner Correctional Institution to Danbury Hospital.
The lawsuit says the staff at Danbury were able to convince Allen to take one liter of intravenous fluid and when he was more stable he was transported to John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington.
Allen weighs 110 pounds and Correction Department officials believe he “cannot continue much longer in his refusal of fluids without causing himself permanent physical damage or death,” the lawsuit says.
Bill Coleman, who is nearing the end of an eight year sentence, stopped eating in September 2007 and by September 2008 he stopped taking all fluids.
In January 2009 Superior Court Judge James T. Graham issued a temporary injunction that allowed prison officials to force feed Coleman. Even though they had the court’s permission prison officials didn’t intervene and start force feeding Coleman until several months later. The injunction they filed is now permanent.
Graham is also presiding over Allen’s case.