Lantz v. Coleman[1] is a Connecticut superior court case that addresses the constitutionality of forcibly feeding prison inmates on hunger strikes.
The defendant in the case, William B. Coleman, is a British national who was sentenced to eight years in state prison in 2005 for sexually assaulting his wife.
Some time later, he started to refuse all liquids and nutritional supplements, other than occasional milk, juice and water during the Christmas season, to spare his family from his death during the holidays.
The court also ruled allowing Coleman to starve himself to death would violate the prison's obligation to care for the health of convicts, and feeding was a medically harmless process when performed under sedation.
The University of Pennsylvania's Arthur Caplan, who testified for Coleman at the trial, wrote in the Hartford Courant: Prisoners do not have many rights while in jail.