July 25, 2009
Warren Gamaliel Lilly, Jr.
DOC #447655
DCI, P. O. Box 700
Waupun, WI 53963-0700
Eric Holder
U. S. Attorney General
USDOJ, Civil Rights Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W.
Washington, DC 20530
Re:
Previous letter of April 14, 2009
Dear Mr. Holder:
By this letter I am, again, asking you to direct the U. S. DOJ to bring, for Black Americans and other minorities imprisoned within Wisconsin, a civil rights suit charging the state of Wisconsin with racial profiling. It is only through such a suit that the holocaust of imprisonment of Black Americans can be ended.
I suggest that the basis of such a suit be the irrefutable statistics generated by the U. S. justice and Wisconsin prison systems. Consider that the U. S. is roughly 5% of the world's population yet it holds more than 25% of the world's prisoners. More than 50% of those prisoners are Black Americans which implies that more than 12% of the world's prisoners is American Blacks who make up less than 0.6% of the world's population! If any other country produced such stats against one of its minority populations we'd drag it before the U. N. and charge it with human rights violations.
Specifically, in Wisconsin Blacks are less than 6% of the state's population but more than 50% of its prisoners, while whites, who are 90% of the population, are only 45% of the prisoners. This yields a stunning ratio of 50% / 6% : 45% / 90% or 16:1. The shocking and false implication being that Blacks in Wisconsin are 16 times more criminal than whites!
Though my research is limited by my circumstances I can find in the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data no other state more egregious in its violations of the civil rights of Black Americans than is Wisconsin. Among the world's rogue states Wisconsin's imprisonment statistics makes it the number one violator of the civil rights of its minority citizens. Its politicians have, without blanching, remorse, or remedy, admitted to the racial bias of its justice system then built more prisons in support of that bias.
Though I implore the U. S. DOJ to bring suit against the state of Wisconsin I know it will be joined, in support of Wisconsin, by almost every state in America. A victory by the DOJ would have the effect of cleansing the American justice system of what may be the last institutionalized vestiges of racism in America.
The BJS produced statistics of bias and abuse of Blacks in the American justice system should of themselves shame this nation into making the needed reforms. However, reform will only come from challenge through a court confrontation which exposes what's hidden behind the walls of imprisonment. The failures of justice in this nation must be exposed to the world thereby embarrassing us into change.
In the name of Black, and in truth all, prisoners I beg you to bring this suit to save and restore the lives of millions of Americans. I ask you if not now then when and if not you then who?
The President has stood up against America's violations of justice and human rights at Guantanamo in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq, will you do the same for Americans here at home?
Sincerely,
Warren G. Lilly, Jr.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Videos of Warren Lilly being forced fed
This article about Warren Lilly, who has been on a hunger strike, was published on June 20th, 2009 in Isthmus Weekly.
Here are the snippets of the 4 hour long film of forced feeding of Warren Lilly:
Here are the snippets of the 4 hour long film of forced feeding of Warren Lilly:
Lilly- "Idiot's Club" from The Daily Page on Vimeo.
Lilly- talk with "Seaweed" from The Daily Page on Vimeo.
Lilly - 2/28/09 breakfast "stop this" from The Daily Page on Vimeo.
Lilly - 2/28/09 Breakfast "Oscar Mayer" from The Daily Page on Vimeo.
Lilly - "Lavern and Shirley reruns" from The Daily Page on Vimeo.
Monday, June 1, 2009
SUMMARY OF EXHIBIT 1: DOC’s DVD of 2–27- 09 SUPPER FEEDING
STATE OF WISCONSIN CIRCUIT COURT COUNTY OF DODGE
In the Matter of Case No. 07CV392
WARREN LILLY, JR. #447655
SUMMARY OF EXHIBIT 1: DOC’s DVD of 2–27- 09 SUPPER FEEDING
Over this past weekend, the Court watched the two-hour and nine minute video off of Exhibit 1, which was the video of the forced feeding of Inmate Lilly on the evening of February 27, 2009. This was not watched in the courtroom, and therefore has not been transcribed by a court reporter. In fact, it would be difficult for a court reporter to transcribe much of it because of ambient noise and comments by other people walking down the hall and other inmates in adjoining cells. However, it would give the reader a good idea of what the process consisted of and some of what Inmate Lilly had to say.
I did not write down everything that he had to say, and maybe only have a third of what he said here, but it still gives the reader a reasonable sketch of what transpired during the two-hour feeding. Primarily what I left out in the statements of Mr. Lilly are many additional shouts of “STOP THIS!!”. Much of what Lilly had to say was shouted out. The loudest shouting, however, is shown in ALL CAPS, with the very loudest followed by double exclamation points.
The actual start time on the DVD on February 27th was 5:32 p.m. However, as the DVD is running, I don’t have that clock, but I rather have the DVD internal clock, and those are the times that I am referencing below.
:30 Four SWAT team members are introduced by the white shirt officer. Two team members have large bolsters. All four have helmets with face shields, latex gloves, heavy clothing, high boots, etc. 1:15 The team announces itself to Mr. Lilly. Lilly requests to use his toilet. He is given a chance to do that before they enter.
They go through a series of questioning asking such things as whether he would accept a meal tray, and whether he would wear clothing. He is told that if he won’t accept the meal tray they will be force feeding him.
3:30 Just before they enter, they order him to lie on his bed on his stomach with his head turned away from them, his hands crossed behind his back. Lilly complies. The team enters, applies handcuffs which are double locked behind Mr. Lilly’s back. Some type of a nylon strap is used to restrain his ankles.
5:03 He is seated into the restraint chair.
5:20 Leg restraints are applied, as well as chest restraints. He ahs been immobilized except for his head.
5:50 Nurse enters with equipment. Nurse getting things ready.
Lilly is talking to the camera. Talks about the cost of having all these guards around him for two hours watching him sitting in the restraint chair. He says something about a cost of $18,000 a year for this feeding process. He concludes his remarks with, “Welcome to the idiot club.”
9:05 Insertion of the tube after reading him more questions and statements.
9:25 Tube insertion has been completed. Lilly makes statement, “I am still losing weight, by sitting in the chair for two hours . . . I did not lose weight at New Lisbon.” The feeding then starts.
12:38 Lilly complaining about the cold and about them leaving his door open. Lilly says, “They left the door open for two hours so the temperature goes down to 40 degrees . . . Pray to God, I am not going to survive two hours of this!”
14:47 Lilly: “THIS IS BARBARITY AT ITS UTMOST!”
15:15 Lilly notes there was some unidentified witness observing, maybe from BHS.
15:54 Lilly: “Why would you purposely subject me to these cold temperatures?”
16:10 Lilly: “STOP THIS . . . THIS IS MURDER! SOMEBODY STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING!”
16:40 Lilly: “ This makes no sense for you to freeze me . . . how am I to gain weight if you are freezing me?”
17:15 Lilly: “STOP THIS! You are people, you have a conscience.”
17:45 Lilly: “STOP THIS . . . DON’T JUST STAND THERE AND LET THIS BE DONE . . . IF YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN, STOP THIS! . . . DON’T LET THIS BE DONE IN YOUR GOD’S NAME!”
18:20 Lilly: “The court did not order that your freeze me . . . or that you keep me in this chair for two hours.”
19:10 Lilly: “YOU ARE A PARTY TO MURDER . . . YOU ARE A PARTY TO INDECENCY!”
19:38 Lilly: “What are you going to allow them to do next?”
Several times during this process Lilly complains about how low his core temperature is getting down to and how dangerous this is.
20:30 Lilly: “Lt. Schultz, don’t do this, don’t allow this! . . . This cannot be condoned by your morality.”
21:36 Lilly: “People are going in and out from rec . . . you can feel the cold air rolling into this room!”
Lilly: “This is why America is going to hell . . . atrocities in the name of the state!”
22:30 Lilly: “How can this be done in this country? How can you all stand around and then go home to your children and say ‘I had a good day at work?’”
23:48 Lilly: “OH MY GOD, THE COLD AIR IS JUST ROLLING IN . . . I DON’T BELIEVE THIS!”
[The feeding tube is still in his nose this whole time.]
24:35 Lilly: “STOP IT!! STOP IT!!”
24:56 Lilly: “I AM FREEZING . . . STOP THIS! STOP THIS! STOP THIS! STOP THIS!”
26:13 A changing of the guard. Two SWAT team members are replaced by two others. The ones who are on “active duty” are standing just behind and to each side of Mr. Lilly in case he tries anything.
27:10 Lilly is trying to exhort the C wing inmates to protest by banging on their doors or by screaming, but they are silent. [I think most of them are out at rec now because I don’t hear any ambient inmate noise.]
Lilly is now damning his fellow inmates saying that, “This is the problem with black people . . . they take it too quietly.”
28:52 Lilly: “STOP THIS BARBARITY!! . . . STOP THIS MURDER!!"
29:56 Lilly: “They are flooding the basement with cold air . . . they want me to quit . . . they are going to do this three times a day, six hours a day, they are going to freeze me until the day I die.”
31:30 It appears that Lilly’s knees are shaking together, shivering. He still has the tube up his nose.
32:40 Now you can hear another inmate saying something to Lilly about he is taking notes of what they are doing and he has sent similar notes to the Governor and to their Congressman.
34:07 The other inmate continues to yell at the staff to stop this, that they have made their point. He points out that Lilly is black and that all of them are white, and there could be a claim for racism.
35:03 Another inmate mentions Lilly’s nakedness and how cold it is.
36:50 Lilly shouts out his name and states his age and indicates that he, “is protesting that the DOC abuses people when they don’t have to. . . and now they are trying to freeze me out . . . to kill me.”
38:00 The other inmate now says he is going to go on a hunger strike too, and that he is not a black person.
38:21 The nurse re-enters and checks something, exiting about 17 seconds later.
39:53 Lilly: “I AM FREEZING TO DEATH!! . . . STOP THIS!! LT. SCHULTZ, STOP THIS!!”
As we proceed, there are longer periods of silence now between Lilly’s outbursts. It appears that he is still shaking/ shivering.
43:30 Another guard change for one of the individuals.
44:00 Lilly is asking just one person in his cell wing to go to their door and to say the Lord’s Prayer out loud, just one person [no one does so]. Lilly: “Such bravery!”
Lilly: If you are a Muslim, come to your door and praise Allah, won’t you do that?”
The DOC staff has been stone silent this whole time, other than the preliminary questions that are asked prior to the feeding.
47:06 Lilly: “STOP THIS BARBARITY . . . THIS IS NOT AMERICA! STOP THIS!!”
47:45 The nurse is back, leaving again about 18 seconds later.
I believe they put a towel down on the restraint chair seat before they put Lilly onto the seat. After Lilly was fastened to the chair, a towel was placed over his lap. He is naked other than for that. He has nothing on his chest or shoulders.
49:57 Lilly: “Well, Judge Bissonnette, this is the level of barbarity they have come to, because you have turned your back!”
50:55 Lilly: “If it doesn’t work, keep on doing it!”
52:20 Lilly: “IF I WAS EVER GOING TO QUIT, I AM NOT NOW! . . . GOD DAMN EVERYONE WHO IS STANDING AROUND PARTICIPATING IN THIS . . . I WISH I COULD PUT A CURSE ON YOU!”
54:10 Lilly: “STOP THIS! Stop this, it won’t work! What next? What are you going to do when this doesn’t work?”
55:20 Lilly leans over and regurgitates off the left side of his chair.
57:40 Another changing of both guards. They stand behind him with their hands folded in front of them.
58:00 More ambient noise, sounds like inmates returning from rec, or from supper, or somewhere.
59:30 Lilly: “I don’t care if you go to four hours . . . even 24 hours! I WILL NOT QUIT!!”
1:01:36 Nurse re-enters.
1:02:07 Nurse leaves again.
1:04:50 Lilly: “STOP THIS BARBARITY!!”
1:06:02 Lilly: “STOP THIS! STOP THIS!!”
1:06:32 (Lilly sighing) . . . “How low will they go?”
1:07:33 (Lilly groaning)
1:07:54 Lilly has somehow manipulated the feeding tube towards his back and has grabbed it with one of his hands. The security staff makes a statement that it looks like he is now trying to pull the tube out of his nose. The nurse and the SWAT team respond. They are yelling at him to let go of the tube. A guard is grabbing Lilly’s head and forcibly turning it to one side. He is responding, “OK I am letting go.”
1:09:13 The tube is out of his nose, but they are still trying to get it out of his hand.
1:09:58 Nurse re-enters with a new tube.
1:10:20 Nurse leaves.
1:10:40 Lilly, yelling out to another inmate, “I grabbed the tube and ripped it up, and now they are going to get another one.”
1:11:50 The tube has been reinserted. They had to hold his head still in order to get him to cooperate with the reinsertion. 1:12:38 The nurse is using a stethoscope to listen for air in Mr. Lilly’s stomach to make sure the tube is in the right place.
1:12:55 The tube is taped in place.
1:13:30 Feeding is restarted and nurse leaves.
1:13:40 Lilly: “STOP THIS!!”
A few minutes of silence here. Lilly’s head is down. His knees are still shaking together.
1:21:50 Lilly: “STOP THIS! . . . STOP THIS!! . . . STOP IT!’
Throughout this entire tape the security staff has remained very calm and stoic in the face of his complaining and screaming. Nothing is ever said by any of the security staff, other than when they needed to direct him to let go of the tube, etc.
1:23:20 Lilly: “STOP THIS! STOP THIS!”
1:23:52 Another change of the guard. Lilly’s knees are still knocking together.
1:26:30 Nurse walks in with hands in his pockets, makes an observation and walks out a few seconds later.
For most of this time the camera has been in a fixed position with a fixed focus. Presumably it is on a tripod. It is focused on Lilly in the restraint chair, but you can also visualize the security staff standing around him.
1:29.20 Lilly: “Plan 3 doesn’t appear to be working!”
I am now hearing a lot of ambient inmate chatter in the background.
1:34:37 Lilly: “STOP THIS!!”
1:36:00 Lilly is saying something, but I can’t understand it over the ambient inmate banter going on out in the hall or in the adjoining cells.
1:36:58 Lilly: “All you have to do is put the right people in charge and they will do anything . . . anything!”
1:37:55 Lilly talking about other inmates and how they are not protesting what the DOC is doing to him and facetiously noting how brave they all are.
1:39:37 Lilly: “STOP THIS!!”
1:43.33 Lilly has been listening to some chatter down the hall between other inmates, and then he jumps in, “All your talking is a copout . . . why don’t you put yourself on the line?”
Some dialogue between Lilly and the other inmates is occurring, but it is impossible to understand exactly what the inmate(s) is saying.
1:45:30 Lilly: “All I am asking is that you raise your voice in protest . . . and your voice joins mine.”
1:46:38 Lilly talking to the other inmate down the hall, “You have survived 18 years in here by not doing anything.”
1:47.21 Lilly: “I am telling you that I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. I am telling you that I marched with King. I am telling you that I have been protesting ever since I have been old enough to do it. I am telling you that the first time I got involved in protest is when I woke up one Sunday morning and my house was shaking because those bastards had bombed a church down the street.”
1:48:05 Another inmate down the hall is talking about Martin Luther King and I think has made a comment about how King didn’t do anything for inmates and how that is a whole different issue than what King stood for.
1:48.20 Lilly, disagreeing with the other inmate, “This is all the same thing.” Lilly arguing that what happened in Birmingham is the same thing that is happening in the prisons now.
1:49.55 Lilly, referencing another inmate down the hall named Al, “I agree with Al . . . everybody has to do their own thing.”
1:51:37 Nurse, in the maroon shirt, comes and stands in the doorway and looks in for a few seconds.
1:52:30 Lilly: “They’re not afraid of me, they’re afraid of you . . . they are afraid that you might get inspired and do something. They let me scream my head off, they freeze my nuts off, they abuse my rights, and nobody is going to protest. They win again. They have nobody to fear.”
1:54.20 Lilly’s knees are still shaking, although there has been no mention of cold for a long time.
1:54:50 Lilly: “We need to be together . . . just one of us fighting them will never work . . . we need to be together . . . why do you think that civil rights did eventually work.”
1:56:00 Lilly: “All over the world the same fight is being fought. Look at Guantanamo . . . those prisoners down there . . . they all went in on a huger strike together.” Lilly then talks about 5,000 inmates in Greece doing some type of a hunger strike.
1:57:40 Lilly: “Instead, we let them feed us radios and TV’s, making us happy inmates. Yes sir, and what you hope for is that everything was going to get better.”
1:58:40 Lilly: “They are pacifying you, all the time upping the number of years you are in prison . . . they won’t even give you parole, they’ll give you flat screen TV’s, how stupid can you be? They are making their money by keeping you here . . . like a god damn cow . . . as long as the keep you here, they make money.”
2:00:08 Lilly vomiting again off the left side of his chair.
2:00:45 Lilly: “It’s not working, I’m still throwing up most of the formula! ASSHOLES, IT’S NOT WORKING! MORANS, IT’S NOT WORKING!”
2:01:46 Nurse back in the room.
2:02:05 Nurse leaves.
2:02:28 Lilly: “STOP THIS!!”
2:02:46 Changing of the guards again.
2:03:45 Lilly: “STOP THIS!!”
2:06:00 White shirt (lieutenant or captain, I don’t know which) passes across the doorway and looks in.
2:06:30 Lilly makes some comment about warm for two hours, but it’s not understandable.
2:07:39 Nurse back in the room.
2:07:48 Camera is taken off of the tripod and is being handheld.
2:08:25 Checking on the feed bag. The SWAT team starts to gather together around Mr. Lilly.
2:09:15 The tube is being removed.
The white-shirted officer walks out and faces the camera. Indicates that it is now 7:42 p.m. She indicates that the tube feeding has been finished and the report has ended. The video doesn’t show Mr. Lilly getting removed from his chair. When it ends, he is still in the chair with the security staff gathering around him.
This Summary is dated: April 21st, 2009.
_______________________________
Andrew P. Bissonnette
Circuit Court Judge
In the Matter of Case No. 07CV392
WARREN LILLY, JR. #447655
SUMMARY OF EXHIBIT 1: DOC’s DVD of 2–27- 09 SUPPER FEEDING
Over this past weekend, the Court watched the two-hour and nine minute video off of Exhibit 1, which was the video of the forced feeding of Inmate Lilly on the evening of February 27, 2009. This was not watched in the courtroom, and therefore has not been transcribed by a court reporter. In fact, it would be difficult for a court reporter to transcribe much of it because of ambient noise and comments by other people walking down the hall and other inmates in adjoining cells. However, it would give the reader a good idea of what the process consisted of and some of what Inmate Lilly had to say.
I did not write down everything that he had to say, and maybe only have a third of what he said here, but it still gives the reader a reasonable sketch of what transpired during the two-hour feeding. Primarily what I left out in the statements of Mr. Lilly are many additional shouts of “STOP THIS!!”. Much of what Lilly had to say was shouted out. The loudest shouting, however, is shown in ALL CAPS, with the very loudest followed by double exclamation points.
The actual start time on the DVD on February 27th was 5:32 p.m. However, as the DVD is running, I don’t have that clock, but I rather have the DVD internal clock, and those are the times that I am referencing below.
:30 Four SWAT team members are introduced by the white shirt officer. Two team members have large bolsters. All four have helmets with face shields, latex gloves, heavy clothing, high boots, etc. 1:15 The team announces itself to Mr. Lilly. Lilly requests to use his toilet. He is given a chance to do that before they enter.
They go through a series of questioning asking such things as whether he would accept a meal tray, and whether he would wear clothing. He is told that if he won’t accept the meal tray they will be force feeding him.
3:30 Just before they enter, they order him to lie on his bed on his stomach with his head turned away from them, his hands crossed behind his back. Lilly complies. The team enters, applies handcuffs which are double locked behind Mr. Lilly’s back. Some type of a nylon strap is used to restrain his ankles.
5:03 He is seated into the restraint chair.
5:20 Leg restraints are applied, as well as chest restraints. He ahs been immobilized except for his head.
5:50 Nurse enters with equipment. Nurse getting things ready.
Lilly is talking to the camera. Talks about the cost of having all these guards around him for two hours watching him sitting in the restraint chair. He says something about a cost of $18,000 a year for this feeding process. He concludes his remarks with, “Welcome to the idiot club.”
9:05 Insertion of the tube after reading him more questions and statements.
9:25 Tube insertion has been completed. Lilly makes statement, “I am still losing weight, by sitting in the chair for two hours . . . I did not lose weight at New Lisbon.” The feeding then starts.
12:38 Lilly complaining about the cold and about them leaving his door open. Lilly says, “They left the door open for two hours so the temperature goes down to 40 degrees . . . Pray to God, I am not going to survive two hours of this!”
14:47 Lilly: “THIS IS BARBARITY AT ITS UTMOST!”
15:15 Lilly notes there was some unidentified witness observing, maybe from BHS.
15:54 Lilly: “Why would you purposely subject me to these cold temperatures?”
16:10 Lilly: “STOP THIS . . . THIS IS MURDER! SOMEBODY STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING!”
16:40 Lilly: “ This makes no sense for you to freeze me . . . how am I to gain weight if you are freezing me?”
17:15 Lilly: “STOP THIS! You are people, you have a conscience.”
17:45 Lilly: “STOP THIS . . . DON’T JUST STAND THERE AND LET THIS BE DONE . . . IF YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN, STOP THIS! . . . DON’T LET THIS BE DONE IN YOUR GOD’S NAME!”
18:20 Lilly: “The court did not order that your freeze me . . . or that you keep me in this chair for two hours.”
19:10 Lilly: “YOU ARE A PARTY TO MURDER . . . YOU ARE A PARTY TO INDECENCY!”
19:38 Lilly: “What are you going to allow them to do next?”
Several times during this process Lilly complains about how low his core temperature is getting down to and how dangerous this is.
20:30 Lilly: “Lt. Schultz, don’t do this, don’t allow this! . . . This cannot be condoned by your morality.”
21:36 Lilly: “People are going in and out from rec . . . you can feel the cold air rolling into this room!”
Lilly: “This is why America is going to hell . . . atrocities in the name of the state!”
22:30 Lilly: “How can this be done in this country? How can you all stand around and then go home to your children and say ‘I had a good day at work?’”
23:48 Lilly: “OH MY GOD, THE COLD AIR IS JUST ROLLING IN . . . I DON’T BELIEVE THIS!”
[The feeding tube is still in his nose this whole time.]
24:35 Lilly: “STOP IT!! STOP IT!!”
24:56 Lilly: “I AM FREEZING . . . STOP THIS! STOP THIS! STOP THIS! STOP THIS!”
26:13 A changing of the guard. Two SWAT team members are replaced by two others. The ones who are on “active duty” are standing just behind and to each side of Mr. Lilly in case he tries anything.
27:10 Lilly is trying to exhort the C wing inmates to protest by banging on their doors or by screaming, but they are silent. [I think most of them are out at rec now because I don’t hear any ambient inmate noise.]
Lilly is now damning his fellow inmates saying that, “This is the problem with black people . . . they take it too quietly.”
28:52 Lilly: “STOP THIS BARBARITY!! . . . STOP THIS MURDER!!"
29:56 Lilly: “They are flooding the basement with cold air . . . they want me to quit . . . they are going to do this three times a day, six hours a day, they are going to freeze me until the day I die.”
31:30 It appears that Lilly’s knees are shaking together, shivering. He still has the tube up his nose.
32:40 Now you can hear another inmate saying something to Lilly about he is taking notes of what they are doing and he has sent similar notes to the Governor and to their Congressman.
34:07 The other inmate continues to yell at the staff to stop this, that they have made their point. He points out that Lilly is black and that all of them are white, and there could be a claim for racism.
35:03 Another inmate mentions Lilly’s nakedness and how cold it is.
36:50 Lilly shouts out his name and states his age and indicates that he, “is protesting that the DOC abuses people when they don’t have to. . . and now they are trying to freeze me out . . . to kill me.”
38:00 The other inmate now says he is going to go on a hunger strike too, and that he is not a black person.
38:21 The nurse re-enters and checks something, exiting about 17 seconds later.
39:53 Lilly: “I AM FREEZING TO DEATH!! . . . STOP THIS!! LT. SCHULTZ, STOP THIS!!”
As we proceed, there are longer periods of silence now between Lilly’s outbursts. It appears that he is still shaking/ shivering.
43:30 Another guard change for one of the individuals.
44:00 Lilly is asking just one person in his cell wing to go to their door and to say the Lord’s Prayer out loud, just one person [no one does so]. Lilly: “Such bravery!”
Lilly: If you are a Muslim, come to your door and praise Allah, won’t you do that?”
The DOC staff has been stone silent this whole time, other than the preliminary questions that are asked prior to the feeding.
47:06 Lilly: “STOP THIS BARBARITY . . . THIS IS NOT AMERICA! STOP THIS!!”
47:45 The nurse is back, leaving again about 18 seconds later.
I believe they put a towel down on the restraint chair seat before they put Lilly onto the seat. After Lilly was fastened to the chair, a towel was placed over his lap. He is naked other than for that. He has nothing on his chest or shoulders.
49:57 Lilly: “Well, Judge Bissonnette, this is the level of barbarity they have come to, because you have turned your back!”
50:55 Lilly: “If it doesn’t work, keep on doing it!”
52:20 Lilly: “IF I WAS EVER GOING TO QUIT, I AM NOT NOW! . . . GOD DAMN EVERYONE WHO IS STANDING AROUND PARTICIPATING IN THIS . . . I WISH I COULD PUT A CURSE ON YOU!”
54:10 Lilly: “STOP THIS! Stop this, it won’t work! What next? What are you going to do when this doesn’t work?”
55:20 Lilly leans over and regurgitates off the left side of his chair.
57:40 Another changing of both guards. They stand behind him with their hands folded in front of them.
58:00 More ambient noise, sounds like inmates returning from rec, or from supper, or somewhere.
59:30 Lilly: “I don’t care if you go to four hours . . . even 24 hours! I WILL NOT QUIT!!”
1:01:36 Nurse re-enters.
1:02:07 Nurse leaves again.
1:04:50 Lilly: “STOP THIS BARBARITY!!”
1:06:02 Lilly: “STOP THIS! STOP THIS!!”
1:06:32 (Lilly sighing) . . . “How low will they go?”
1:07:33 (Lilly groaning)
1:07:54 Lilly has somehow manipulated the feeding tube towards his back and has grabbed it with one of his hands. The security staff makes a statement that it looks like he is now trying to pull the tube out of his nose. The nurse and the SWAT team respond. They are yelling at him to let go of the tube. A guard is grabbing Lilly’s head and forcibly turning it to one side. He is responding, “OK I am letting go.”
1:09:13 The tube is out of his nose, but they are still trying to get it out of his hand.
1:09:58 Nurse re-enters with a new tube.
1:10:20 Nurse leaves.
1:10:40 Lilly, yelling out to another inmate, “I grabbed the tube and ripped it up, and now they are going to get another one.”
1:11:50 The tube has been reinserted. They had to hold his head still in order to get him to cooperate with the reinsertion. 1:12:38 The nurse is using a stethoscope to listen for air in Mr. Lilly’s stomach to make sure the tube is in the right place.
1:12:55 The tube is taped in place.
1:13:30 Feeding is restarted and nurse leaves.
1:13:40 Lilly: “STOP THIS!!”
A few minutes of silence here. Lilly’s head is down. His knees are still shaking together.
1:21:50 Lilly: “STOP THIS! . . . STOP THIS!! . . . STOP IT!’
Throughout this entire tape the security staff has remained very calm and stoic in the face of his complaining and screaming. Nothing is ever said by any of the security staff, other than when they needed to direct him to let go of the tube, etc.
1:23:20 Lilly: “STOP THIS! STOP THIS!”
1:23:52 Another change of the guard. Lilly’s knees are still knocking together.
1:26:30 Nurse walks in with hands in his pockets, makes an observation and walks out a few seconds later.
For most of this time the camera has been in a fixed position with a fixed focus. Presumably it is on a tripod. It is focused on Lilly in the restraint chair, but you can also visualize the security staff standing around him.
1:29.20 Lilly: “Plan 3 doesn’t appear to be working!”
I am now hearing a lot of ambient inmate chatter in the background.
1:34:37 Lilly: “STOP THIS!!”
1:36:00 Lilly is saying something, but I can’t understand it over the ambient inmate banter going on out in the hall or in the adjoining cells.
1:36:58 Lilly: “All you have to do is put the right people in charge and they will do anything . . . anything!”
1:37:55 Lilly talking about other inmates and how they are not protesting what the DOC is doing to him and facetiously noting how brave they all are.
1:39:37 Lilly: “STOP THIS!!”
1:43.33 Lilly has been listening to some chatter down the hall between other inmates, and then he jumps in, “All your talking is a copout . . . why don’t you put yourself on the line?”
Some dialogue between Lilly and the other inmates is occurring, but it is impossible to understand exactly what the inmate(s) is saying.
1:45:30 Lilly: “All I am asking is that you raise your voice in protest . . . and your voice joins mine.”
1:46:38 Lilly talking to the other inmate down the hall, “You have survived 18 years in here by not doing anything.”
1:47.21 Lilly: “I am telling you that I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. I am telling you that I marched with King. I am telling you that I have been protesting ever since I have been old enough to do it. I am telling you that the first time I got involved in protest is when I woke up one Sunday morning and my house was shaking because those bastards had bombed a church down the street.”
1:48:05 Another inmate down the hall is talking about Martin Luther King and I think has made a comment about how King didn’t do anything for inmates and how that is a whole different issue than what King stood for.
1:48.20 Lilly, disagreeing with the other inmate, “This is all the same thing.” Lilly arguing that what happened in Birmingham is the same thing that is happening in the prisons now.
1:49.55 Lilly, referencing another inmate down the hall named Al, “I agree with Al . . . everybody has to do their own thing.”
1:51:37 Nurse, in the maroon shirt, comes and stands in the doorway and looks in for a few seconds.
1:52:30 Lilly: “They’re not afraid of me, they’re afraid of you . . . they are afraid that you might get inspired and do something. They let me scream my head off, they freeze my nuts off, they abuse my rights, and nobody is going to protest. They win again. They have nobody to fear.”
1:54.20 Lilly’s knees are still shaking, although there has been no mention of cold for a long time.
1:54:50 Lilly: “We need to be together . . . just one of us fighting them will never work . . . we need to be together . . . why do you think that civil rights did eventually work.”
1:56:00 Lilly: “All over the world the same fight is being fought. Look at Guantanamo . . . those prisoners down there . . . they all went in on a huger strike together.” Lilly then talks about 5,000 inmates in Greece doing some type of a hunger strike.
1:57:40 Lilly: “Instead, we let them feed us radios and TV’s, making us happy inmates. Yes sir, and what you hope for is that everything was going to get better.”
1:58:40 Lilly: “They are pacifying you, all the time upping the number of years you are in prison . . . they won’t even give you parole, they’ll give you flat screen TV’s, how stupid can you be? They are making their money by keeping you here . . . like a god damn cow . . . as long as the keep you here, they make money.”
2:00:08 Lilly vomiting again off the left side of his chair.
2:00:45 Lilly: “It’s not working, I’m still throwing up most of the formula! ASSHOLES, IT’S NOT WORKING! MORANS, IT’S NOT WORKING!”
2:01:46 Nurse back in the room.
2:02:05 Nurse leaves.
2:02:28 Lilly: “STOP THIS!!”
2:02:46 Changing of the guards again.
2:03:45 Lilly: “STOP THIS!!”
2:06:00 White shirt (lieutenant or captain, I don’t know which) passes across the doorway and looks in.
2:06:30 Lilly makes some comment about warm for two hours, but it’s not understandable.
2:07:39 Nurse back in the room.
2:07:48 Camera is taken off of the tripod and is being handheld.
2:08:25 Checking on the feed bag. The SWAT team starts to gather together around Mr. Lilly.
2:09:15 The tube is being removed.
The white-shirted officer walks out and faces the camera. Indicates that it is now 7:42 p.m. She indicates that the tube feeding has been finished and the report has ended. The video doesn’t show Mr. Lilly getting removed from his chair. When it ends, he is still in the chair with the security staff gathering around him.
This Summary is dated: April 21st, 2009.
_______________________________
Andrew P. Bissonnette
Circuit Court Judge
Saturday, May 30, 2009
New Ruling from Judge Bissonnette
For Immediate Release
On May 19, 2009, Judge Andrew P. Bissonnette, of the Dodge County Circuit court, in case number 2007-CV-00392 WI DOC v Lilly, issued a 64-page Decision and Order (D&O) terminating the forced feeding of Warren Gamaliel Lilly, Jr.. Lilly, for five years, has been hunger striking and was being forced fed by the DOC. His is the longest running hunger strike in Wisconsin history and perhaps in the history of the United States.
Judge Bissonnette’s D&O effectively acknowledged Lilly’s right to, if he so chooses, hunger strike unto his death. LIlly has been hunger striking since May 2004 in protest of Wisconsin’s race and class biased justice system. Lilly states that Black Wisconsinites are imprisoned at 16 to 20 times the rates of white Wisconsinites, and that similar rates are also seen in the imprisonment of the mentally ill and the illiterate. He says it’s those who are least capable of defending themselves and the poor who now populate Wisconsin’s prisons.
Germane to Bissonnette’s D&O was the question of whether or not Lilly was being tortured. Excerpts from the D&O follow.
“The Court has ordered the termination of all force feeding orders of Mr. Lilly and has enjoined any future such orders.” Cover letter to D&O.
“Exhibit 9 is an article documenting the tough steps taken by the U.S. military at the detention center in Guantanamo. It includes extensive discussion of the use of the restraint chair. In fact, it includes a descriptive paragraph that is eerily similar to the circumstances Mr. Lilly has related to the Court [and are depicted in Exhibits 1 and 2 which are graphic videos of Mr. Lily’s force feedings], ...”. D&O pages 20 - 21. Bold added for emphasis.
“Some commentators equate any use of the restraint chair in and of itself to a form of torture. The Court doesn’t necessarily agree with that broad of a statement in every circumstance, but certainly Mr. Lilly’s complaints about he particular duration and method of using the restraint chair, and its effects on him physically in this case, contributes to the Court’s finding of compelling circumstances warranting the termination of the force feeding order”. D&O page 16.
“Forcible feeding is never ethically acceptable. Even if intended to benefit, feeding accompanied by threats, coercion, force or use of physical restraints is a form of inhuman and degrading treatment. Exhibit 8, Declaration of Malta at 21”. D&O page 17.
“28) That the DOC most recently was engaging in a practice of employing four SWAT team members, [a camera operator], and an officer, and an RN [and sometimes two] in extended feedings taking more than two hours, of Mr. Lilly, three times a day, and seven days a week. Therefore, that the taxpayers cost of violating his constitutional right to be free of unwanted medical care is somewhere in the vicinity of $200,000 and $300,000 dollars per year; ...”. D&O page 59.
To date, by the best estimates available the DOC has spent over one million dollars (1,000,000) forcibly feeding Mr. Lilly. Additional information is available, on the costs and other issues at www.warrenlilly.blogspot.com
Visit Lilly's blog or contact him at
Warren G. Lilly, Jr.
DOC # 447655
Dodge Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 700
Waupun, WI 53963-0700
On May 19, 2009, Judge Andrew P. Bissonnette, of the Dodge County Circuit court, in case number 2007-CV-00392 WI DOC v Lilly, issued a 64-page Decision and Order (D&O) terminating the forced feeding of Warren Gamaliel Lilly, Jr.. Lilly, for five years, has been hunger striking and was being forced fed by the DOC. His is the longest running hunger strike in Wisconsin history and perhaps in the history of the United States.
Judge Bissonnette’s D&O effectively acknowledged Lilly’s right to, if he so chooses, hunger strike unto his death. LIlly has been hunger striking since May 2004 in protest of Wisconsin’s race and class biased justice system. Lilly states that Black Wisconsinites are imprisoned at 16 to 20 times the rates of white Wisconsinites, and that similar rates are also seen in the imprisonment of the mentally ill and the illiterate. He says it’s those who are least capable of defending themselves and the poor who now populate Wisconsin’s prisons.
Germane to Bissonnette’s D&O was the question of whether or not Lilly was being tortured. Excerpts from the D&O follow.
“The Court has ordered the termination of all force feeding orders of Mr. Lilly and has enjoined any future such orders.” Cover letter to D&O.
“Exhibit 9 is an article documenting the tough steps taken by the U.S. military at the detention center in Guantanamo. It includes extensive discussion of the use of the restraint chair. In fact, it includes a descriptive paragraph that is eerily similar to the circumstances Mr. Lilly has related to the Court [and are depicted in Exhibits 1 and 2 which are graphic videos of Mr. Lily’s force feedings], ...”. D&O pages 20 - 21. Bold added for emphasis.
“Some commentators equate any use of the restraint chair in and of itself to a form of torture. The Court doesn’t necessarily agree with that broad of a statement in every circumstance, but certainly Mr. Lilly’s complaints about he particular duration and method of using the restraint chair, and its effects on him physically in this case, contributes to the Court’s finding of compelling circumstances warranting the termination of the force feeding order”. D&O page 16.
“Forcible feeding is never ethically acceptable. Even if intended to benefit, feeding accompanied by threats, coercion, force or use of physical restraints is a form of inhuman and degrading treatment. Exhibit 8, Declaration of Malta at 21”. D&O page 17.
“28) That the DOC most recently was engaging in a practice of employing four SWAT team members, [a camera operator], and an officer, and an RN [and sometimes two] in extended feedings taking more than two hours, of Mr. Lilly, three times a day, and seven days a week. Therefore, that the taxpayers cost of violating his constitutional right to be free of unwanted medical care is somewhere in the vicinity of $200,000 and $300,000 dollars per year; ...”. D&O page 59.
To date, by the best estimates available the DOC has spent over one million dollars (1,000,000) forcibly feeding Mr. Lilly. Additional information is available, on the costs and other issues at www.warrenlilly.blogspot.com
Visit Lilly's blog or contact him at
Warren G. Lilly, Jr.
DOC # 447655
Dodge Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 700
Waupun, WI 53963-0700
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Video Taped Violence Against Warren Lilly by DOC Guards
2-14 thru 2-28, 2008 WCI Fifteen days of torture via extended intubation and being held naked in a restraint chair in temperatures of fifty-five degrees and below.
6-19-08 noon NLCI Maced, though hands and feet chained, while partially strapped in a restraint chair.
6-19-08 NLCI Tazered four times though hands and feet chained while partially strapped in a restraint chair.
1-10-07 RCI While laying in surrender position maced, chained, and dragged on my face during a strip cage extraction.
1-13,17,18 & 2-8,9,11,15 -07 SCI While laying in surrender position head battered into wall by 'flying guards', arms wrenched up painfully, chains tightened to inflict pain.
6-8,9-06 SCI While laying in surrender position maced, chained stripped, forced to walk backwards with head jammed backwards by guard hanging on me, wrists then twisted in torture ritual during stripcage extraction.
2-28 thru 3-20-05 RCI While laying in surrender position on cement floor guards took 'flying leaps' to pound me into the cement then wrenched my arms and legs while chaining me.
---
Every videotaped violent incident is not listed here. These are perhaps the most egregious events. It must be kept in mind that any unnecessary violence against an unresisting prisoner is a violation of his human rights.
6-19-08 noon NLCI Maced, though hands and feet chained, while partially strapped in a restraint chair.
6-19-08 NLCI Tazered four times though hands and feet chained while partially strapped in a restraint chair.
1-10-07 RCI While laying in surrender position maced, chained, and dragged on my face during a strip cage extraction.
1-13,17,18 & 2-8,9,11,15 -07 SCI While laying in surrender position head battered into wall by 'flying guards', arms wrenched up painfully, chains tightened to inflict pain.
6-8,9-06 SCI While laying in surrender position maced, chained stripped, forced to walk backwards with head jammed backwards by guard hanging on me, wrists then twisted in torture ritual during stripcage extraction.
2-28 thru 3-20-05 RCI While laying in surrender position on cement floor guards took 'flying leaps' to pound me into the cement then wrenched my arms and legs while chaining me.
---
Every videotaped violent incident is not listed here. These are perhaps the most egregious events. It must be kept in mind that any unnecessary violence against an unresisting prisoner is a violation of his human rights.
Court Sanctioned Barbarism: Fifteen Days of Torture
Background
In January 2008 Judge A. P. Bissonnette affirmed a non-existent order supposedly issued by Judge A. B. Torhorst1, of the Racine County Circuit Court in May 2004, allowing the DOC to forcibly feed me. Moreover, in a backdoor deal with the DOC, Bissonnette disallowed force feedings on Sundays cynically cutting the DOC's expenses due to my strike by one seventh but claiming a paternal interest in relieving the thrice-a-day, seven-day-a-week stress of the force feedings on me and the security staff.
That backdoor deal became the source of all my troubles. You see Bissonnette's order also cut my barely subsistence intake by one seventh. To an astute mind this would imply an impending weight loss, unfortunately there were no astute minds in the DOC Health Service Units (HSUs) to which I would be subjected over the next year.
First up to bat (from Jan. 2008 to Jun. 2008), and striking out, was the Jackson Correctional Institution's (JCI) HSU. I was transferred to JCI immediately after Bissonnette signed his No-Sunday-Feedings order. Note that January is the coldest month of the winter and that I was imprisoned in a cage with a high temperature of around fifty-five degrees. Needless to say my weight dropped. Of course the JCI HSU immediately looked past the obvious and accused me of purging the force feeding formula.
To prevent the suspected purging the JCI HSU extended the force feeding sessions from fifteen minutes to two hours. Now instead of forty-five minutes a day the procedures took six hours, which, because the intubation tube was left in my nasal passage the entire time, caused internal damage that lead nasal passage bleeding.
The extended sessions also meant the extraction-team (x-team) had to stay suited-up for the full six hours and, of course, draw overtime for the duty. At roughly $20 per hour per person the extra cost of the extended sessions rapidly built, up. After months of such treatment my net weight gain was 1.4 pounds which, suspect, was attributable mostly to a difference in the scales used to weigh me. With staff and administrative overtime the JCI venture came to over $16,457 per pound gained. The JCI HSU admitted its defeat (not its stupidity), issued me a blanket for warmth, which I'd asked for back in January, and resumed the fifteen minute feeding sessions.
Shortly thereafter I was transferred to the New Lisbon Correctional Institution (NLCI) (from Jun. 2008 to Oct. 2008) where, regrettably for me, no one had told the NLCI HSU staff that the JCI HSU had stopped the extended force feedings.
NLCI, to assure my compliance with the extended feedings, first maced then tazered2 me. I took the NLCI HSU to court and got an injunction against the violence and the extended intubations. The injunction limited the feedings to fifteen minutes or less and limited the time the intubation tube could remain in my person to nine minutes or less. Unbeknownst to me the NLCI HSU, in order to meet the court's nine minute limit, switched force feeding formulas from the high density Ensure-Plus (350 calories per 8 oz.) to the low density Ensure-HP (230 calories per 8 oz.). To understand the full impact of this change consider that until January 2008 I was force feed eight 8-oz. cans of Ensure-Plus per day (8 * 350 cals.. = 2,800 cals..) for seven days a week (7 * 2,800 cals.. = 19,600 cals..). After January I was force fed only six days a week (6 * 2,800 cals.. = 16,800 cals..). With the surreptitious switch to Ensure-HP my daily caloric intake dropped (8 * 230,cals.. = 1,840 cals..) with a commensurate drop in weekly intake (6 * 1,840 cals.. = 10,400 cals..).
On the tail of this formula botch up I was transferred to Waupun Correctional Institution (WCI) (from Oct. 2008 to Feb. 2009) where my weight began to precipitously drop. At first I assumed the weight drop was due to the colder cage I was imprisoned in than at NLCI but later I noticed the nurses were force feeding me Ensure-HP instead of Ensure-Plus. Knowing that if my weight continued to drop the morons at the WCI HSU would, as did those at the NLCI HSU, assume I was the agent of the drop I notified them of the formula change and its consequences. Not only did the HSU ignore the notification it immediately began accusing me of purging the formula!
Not wanting to go through the same nonsense as before at NLCI I notified the court and again the court stepped in and ordered the WCI HSU to use the correct formula. However, despite the court's intervention, the WCI HSU did not immediately switch to the correct formula until my weight dropped to around 125 pounds. The WCI HSU then declared they were faced with an "emergency" medical condition and began to aggressively treat the weight loss by abusing me. They'd allowed months to pass of improper treatment then began an unnecessarily aggressive campaign of extended and extra force feedings.
Judge Bissonnette's Complicity
On February 201 2009 attorney Gloria Thomas of the Wisconsin DOC Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) sent to Judge Bissonnette a copy of my article 'Notes from Starvin' Naked Marvin: A Call to Arms3 . She concluded "Lilly's determined to disrupt the orderly administration of the WI DOC, ...". Well, duh!
On February after receiving this letter Judge Bissonnette conspicuously and conveniently absented himself from the bench allowing attorney Thomas to seek a "emergency" order from Dodge county Judge Pfitzinger allowing the DOC to forcibly abuse me. This was done even though a careful reading of doctor Paul Sumnitch's affidavit did not suggest that my condition was critical and could not await Judge Bissonnette's return.
Pfizinger’s order either knowingly, or because Thomas violated her duty as an officer of the court to inform Pfizinger of previous rulings, violated the Saenz ruling and several rulings issued by Bissonnette. Thomas had a plain and positive duty to inform the court of such rulings, she pointedly did not. In particular the Saenz ruling affirmed my due process right to a hearing before Judge Pfitzinger. The DOC, under Saenz had a one-shot right to an ex-parte ruling to initiate the order to force feed but after that ruling the patient retained a due process right to be notified and represented at all future hearings on the matter. Further, since the Saenz ruling was against a Dodge court judge, it is almost impossible that Pfitzinger could have been ignorant of the import of the Saenz ruling on the order he issued.
The Torture Sessions
Initially the torture sessions began with me being force fed within the court ordered nine minute limit then left in the restraint chair for an hour alone in my cage three times a day. When you consider that I was naked, had been fed 2.2 pounds of cold formula, and was left for an hour strapped in a metal chair in a room with a temperature of fifty-five degrees or less, it quickly becomes apparent that the sessions were not about restoring my weight or maintaining my health, they were about breaking my hunger strike.
In an attempt to stop such mistreatment I taught my self to purge the formula even though held in the restraint chair which was supposed to prevent purging. After any feeding I could purge thirty to fifty percent of the formula, this of course caused my weight to continue to drop. I offered to stop the purging and to help to get my weight back in what I considered a safe range if the WCI HSU would forego the use of the restraint chair. Their response to my offer was the Pfitzinger order which upped the allowed mistreatment.
Under the Pfitzinger order the WCI HSU dripped the formula into my body over a two hour period, this was in violation of the Bissonnette order which allowed only nine minutes or less of intubation to preserve my health. The Pfitzinger order also allowed the WCI HSU to hold me in the restraint chair for two hours per session. To insure that I was maximally uncomfortable the door to my cage was left open to the hallway which had connecting doors to the outside and the outside doors were opened. The temperature of my cage dropped to under forty degrees during some of the two~hour feeding sessions. When I asked to be covered from the cold the security staff responded that security concerns would not allow it, and HSU staff responded that if I was cold I could wear clothing and resume eating. (Oddly, when I transferred to DCI for emergency treatment following WCI's maltreatment, the first thing done when DCI force fed me was to cover me with a blanket!).
The WCI HSU continued this maltreatment from February 23rd to the 28th, during this time I continued to purge thirty to fifty percent of the formula and my weight continued to drop. Finally, after the noon force feeding on the 28th, the WCI HSU declared my condition an emergency condition beyond their abilities and dumped me at the Dodge Correctional Institution's Infirmary for emergency medical care.
Continued Duplicity of Bissonnette
Bissonnette's duplicity did not end with his conspicuously convenient absence. One would think that upon his return to the bench, if his absence had not been feigned, that he'd especially take note of emergency orders issued in his brief absence, remarkably he did not.
On March 5, 2009 during another of his ambush hearings (five minutes before an unscheduled hearing a guard rouses me and takes me to the phone and says I think its you lawyer or somebody), I stated that Pfitzinger's order violated both Saenz and his rulings Bissonnette said, "I haven't review it yet". This was almost some two weeks after its issue and his return to the bench!
Yet when I, in writing, pointed out how his convenient absence had allowed Pfitzinger's violation of my rights and the court rulings he quickly rescinded Pfitzinger order. Had I maintained my hunger strike during the interval between the issuance of the Pfitzinger order and Bissonnette's rescission of the order I, no doubt, would now be dead.
As I review what I’ve written I’m saddened by my inability to portray the brutality and barbarism to which I was subjected. To be bound for two hours in a metal chair completely helpless, exposed to freezing temperatures, naked and enraged at the mistreatment but helpless to stop it. To sit shivering on a slab on cement thinly covered by what they euphemistically call a mattress, vigorously rubbing your hands, arms, legs, and feet for an hour after each force feeding session trying to restore warmth to your body and knowing that in less than two hours you'll be resubjected to the same mistreatment, and all the time knowing its a violation of the law. Knowing that the courts only move slow for you and that even if you could talk to a judge it wasn't very likely that the mistreatment would be ordered stopped soon enough to help.
To truly understand, to empathize with what happened to me you must see the videos made of those sessions from February 14 through February 28, 2009. I speak to my torturers and ask why its being done when its obvious it does not work and is doing me harm. Their answers will astound, sadden, sicken, and enrage you, and I hope move you to action against a system that has gone rogue.
Warren G. Lilly
In January 2008 Judge A. P. Bissonnette affirmed a non-existent order supposedly issued by Judge A. B. Torhorst1, of the Racine County Circuit Court in May 2004, allowing the DOC to forcibly feed me. Moreover, in a backdoor deal with the DOC, Bissonnette disallowed force feedings on Sundays cynically cutting the DOC's expenses due to my strike by one seventh but claiming a paternal interest in relieving the thrice-a-day, seven-day-a-week stress of the force feedings on me and the security staff.
That backdoor deal became the source of all my troubles. You see Bissonnette's order also cut my barely subsistence intake by one seventh. To an astute mind this would imply an impending weight loss, unfortunately there were no astute minds in the DOC Health Service Units (HSUs) to which I would be subjected over the next year.
First up to bat (from Jan. 2008 to Jun. 2008), and striking out, was the Jackson Correctional Institution's (JCI) HSU. I was transferred to JCI immediately after Bissonnette signed his No-Sunday-Feedings order. Note that January is the coldest month of the winter and that I was imprisoned in a cage with a high temperature of around fifty-five degrees. Needless to say my weight dropped. Of course the JCI HSU immediately looked past the obvious and accused me of purging the force feeding formula.
To prevent the suspected purging the JCI HSU extended the force feeding sessions from fifteen minutes to two hours. Now instead of forty-five minutes a day the procedures took six hours, which, because the intubation tube was left in my nasal passage the entire time, caused internal damage that lead nasal passage bleeding.
The extended sessions also meant the extraction-team (x-team) had to stay suited-up for the full six hours and, of course, draw overtime for the duty. At roughly $20 per hour per person the extra cost of the extended sessions rapidly built, up. After months of such treatment my net weight gain was 1.4 pounds which, suspect, was attributable mostly to a difference in the scales used to weigh me. With staff and administrative overtime the JCI venture came to over $16,457 per pound gained. The JCI HSU admitted its defeat (not its stupidity), issued me a blanket for warmth, which I'd asked for back in January, and resumed the fifteen minute feeding sessions.
Shortly thereafter I was transferred to the New Lisbon Correctional Institution (NLCI) (from Jun. 2008 to Oct. 2008) where, regrettably for me, no one had told the NLCI HSU staff that the JCI HSU had stopped the extended force feedings.
NLCI, to assure my compliance with the extended feedings, first maced then tazered2 me. I took the NLCI HSU to court and got an injunction against the violence and the extended intubations. The injunction limited the feedings to fifteen minutes or less and limited the time the intubation tube could remain in my person to nine minutes or less. Unbeknownst to me the NLCI HSU, in order to meet the court's nine minute limit, switched force feeding formulas from the high density Ensure-Plus (350 calories per 8 oz.) to the low density Ensure-HP (230 calories per 8 oz.). To understand the full impact of this change consider that until January 2008 I was force feed eight 8-oz. cans of Ensure-Plus per day (8 * 350 cals.. = 2,800 cals..) for seven days a week (7 * 2,800 cals.. = 19,600 cals..). After January I was force fed only six days a week (6 * 2,800 cals.. = 16,800 cals..). With the surreptitious switch to Ensure-HP my daily caloric intake dropped (8 * 230,cals.. = 1,840 cals..) with a commensurate drop in weekly intake (6 * 1,840 cals.. = 10,400 cals..).
On the tail of this formula botch up I was transferred to Waupun Correctional Institution (WCI) (from Oct. 2008 to Feb. 2009) where my weight began to precipitously drop. At first I assumed the weight drop was due to the colder cage I was imprisoned in than at NLCI but later I noticed the nurses were force feeding me Ensure-HP instead of Ensure-Plus. Knowing that if my weight continued to drop the morons at the WCI HSU would, as did those at the NLCI HSU, assume I was the agent of the drop I notified them of the formula change and its consequences. Not only did the HSU ignore the notification it immediately began accusing me of purging the formula!
Not wanting to go through the same nonsense as before at NLCI I notified the court and again the court stepped in and ordered the WCI HSU to use the correct formula. However, despite the court's intervention, the WCI HSU did not immediately switch to the correct formula until my weight dropped to around 125 pounds. The WCI HSU then declared they were faced with an "emergency" medical condition and began to aggressively treat the weight loss by abusing me. They'd allowed months to pass of improper treatment then began an unnecessarily aggressive campaign of extended and extra force feedings.
Judge Bissonnette's Complicity
On February 201 2009 attorney Gloria Thomas of the Wisconsin DOC Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) sent to Judge Bissonnette a copy of my article 'Notes from Starvin' Naked Marvin: A Call to Arms3 . She concluded "Lilly's determined to disrupt the orderly administration of the WI DOC, ...". Well, duh!
On February after receiving this letter Judge Bissonnette conspicuously and conveniently absented himself from the bench allowing attorney Thomas to seek a "emergency" order from Dodge county Judge Pfitzinger allowing the DOC to forcibly abuse me. This was done even though a careful reading of doctor Paul Sumnitch's affidavit did not suggest that my condition was critical and could not await Judge Bissonnette's return.
Pfizinger’s order either knowingly, or because Thomas violated her duty as an officer of the court to inform Pfizinger of previous rulings, violated the Saenz ruling and several rulings issued by Bissonnette. Thomas had a plain and positive duty to inform the court of such rulings, she pointedly did not. In particular the Saenz ruling affirmed my due process right to a hearing before Judge Pfitzinger. The DOC, under Saenz had a one-shot right to an ex-parte ruling to initiate the order to force feed but after that ruling the patient retained a due process right to be notified and represented at all future hearings on the matter. Further, since the Saenz ruling was against a Dodge court judge, it is almost impossible that Pfitzinger could have been ignorant of the import of the Saenz ruling on the order he issued.
The Torture Sessions
Initially the torture sessions began with me being force fed within the court ordered nine minute limit then left in the restraint chair for an hour alone in my cage three times a day. When you consider that I was naked, had been fed 2.2 pounds of cold formula, and was left for an hour strapped in a metal chair in a room with a temperature of fifty-five degrees or less, it quickly becomes apparent that the sessions were not about restoring my weight or maintaining my health, they were about breaking my hunger strike.
In an attempt to stop such mistreatment I taught my self to purge the formula even though held in the restraint chair which was supposed to prevent purging. After any feeding I could purge thirty to fifty percent of the formula, this of course caused my weight to continue to drop. I offered to stop the purging and to help to get my weight back in what I considered a safe range if the WCI HSU would forego the use of the restraint chair. Their response to my offer was the Pfitzinger order which upped the allowed mistreatment.
Under the Pfitzinger order the WCI HSU dripped the formula into my body over a two hour period, this was in violation of the Bissonnette order which allowed only nine minutes or less of intubation to preserve my health. The Pfitzinger order also allowed the WCI HSU to hold me in the restraint chair for two hours per session. To insure that I was maximally uncomfortable the door to my cage was left open to the hallway which had connecting doors to the outside and the outside doors were opened. The temperature of my cage dropped to under forty degrees during some of the two~hour feeding sessions. When I asked to be covered from the cold the security staff responded that security concerns would not allow it, and HSU staff responded that if I was cold I could wear clothing and resume eating. (Oddly, when I transferred to DCI for emergency treatment following WCI's maltreatment, the first thing done when DCI force fed me was to cover me with a blanket!).
The WCI HSU continued this maltreatment from February 23rd to the 28th, during this time I continued to purge thirty to fifty percent of the formula and my weight continued to drop. Finally, after the noon force feeding on the 28th, the WCI HSU declared my condition an emergency condition beyond their abilities and dumped me at the Dodge Correctional Institution's Infirmary for emergency medical care.
Continued Duplicity of Bissonnette
Bissonnette's duplicity did not end with his conspicuously convenient absence. One would think that upon his return to the bench, if his absence had not been feigned, that he'd especially take note of emergency orders issued in his brief absence, remarkably he did not.
On March 5, 2009 during another of his ambush hearings (five minutes before an unscheduled hearing a guard rouses me and takes me to the phone and says I think its you lawyer or somebody), I stated that Pfitzinger's order violated both Saenz and his rulings Bissonnette said, "I haven't review it yet". This was almost some two weeks after its issue and his return to the bench!
Yet when I, in writing, pointed out how his convenient absence had allowed Pfitzinger's violation of my rights and the court rulings he quickly rescinded Pfitzinger order. Had I maintained my hunger strike during the interval between the issuance of the Pfitzinger order and Bissonnette's rescission of the order I, no doubt, would now be dead.
As I review what I’ve written I’m saddened by my inability to portray the brutality and barbarism to which I was subjected. To be bound for two hours in a metal chair completely helpless, exposed to freezing temperatures, naked and enraged at the mistreatment but helpless to stop it. To sit shivering on a slab on cement thinly covered by what they euphemistically call a mattress, vigorously rubbing your hands, arms, legs, and feet for an hour after each force feeding session trying to restore warmth to your body and knowing that in less than two hours you'll be resubjected to the same mistreatment, and all the time knowing its a violation of the law. Knowing that the courts only move slow for you and that even if you could talk to a judge it wasn't very likely that the mistreatment would be ordered stopped soon enough to help.
To truly understand, to empathize with what happened to me you must see the videos made of those sessions from February 14 through February 28, 2009. I speak to my torturers and ask why its being done when its obvious it does not work and is doing me harm. Their answers will astound, sadden, sicken, and enrage you, and I hope move you to action against a system that has gone rogue.
Warren G. Lilly
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
How Stands The Court?
March 24, 2009
Warren G. Lilly, Jr.
DOC # 447655
DCI, P. O. Box 700
Waupun, WI 53963-0700
Judge A. P. Bissonnette
Dodge County Courthouse, Br. 3
210 West Center Street
Juneau, WI 53039
Re: Case No. 2007-CV-00392, WI DOC v. Lilly
Sir:
On February 10, 2009 I put before the court a motion (Motion for an Order
Rescinding Lilly's Court Order Forced Feedings) asking it to rescind the order it issued allowing the DOC to force feed prisoners, in it I cited several reasons for requesting the motion. Today (March 23, 2009) I offer, by example, yet another reason for the Court to accept my motion and rescind its order allowing force feeding by the DOC. Three weeks ago (March 1, 2009) I asked the DCI Infirmary staff and management to provide me, as required, with a comb or pick suitable for my hair type. I was told that the Infirmary offered no such comb. I found this disturbing as, for the past fifteen to twenty years, more than half of the Infirmary's patients have been African-American.
As I've done at other prisons I informed the Unit Manager of WI Admin. Code Section 303.70(2)(b) which requires that prisoners in segregation status be given a [suitable] comb [or pick]. I first notified the Unit Manager, then the Security Director, and finally the Warden.
Today the Nursing Supervisor, Jim Hebel, came to my cage bearing a black plastic
pick. conspicuously marked with yellow paint "Unit 25". He gave me the pick then
informed me that it was intended to serve the entire Infirmary and that as other
African-American prisoners asked for the pick it would be "scheduled" out for use.
I cringe even to glimpse the cynical, hate filled mindset, the contempt for African-American prisoners which conceived the thought, "We'll buy one pick then let them all use it", then actually put that bigoted plan into effect. The Court must further consider that the group which conceived that shameful plan consisted of some combination of the Infirmary Unit Manager, the prison's Securi.ty Director, the Warden, and possibly a DOC OLC lawyer.
This, Sir, is a prime example of the bigoted and blighted nature of health care
services provided to African-Americans by the State's DOC HSUs. One pick to be
shared, scheduled out, among more than fifty African-American prisoners! The
very idea of sharing a comb under any conditions but especially in a hospital'
setting suggests a level of scorn that borders on depravity, a targeted contempt.
It is no wonder that, statistically, African-American prisoners who receive such
prison controlled health care have a higher mortality rate then the segment of the
free population that does not receive any or only emergency room health care.
The prison officials who masterminded this moronic, depraved, and insulting one-pick-for-all policy are the people, the mindset to whom the court's have abandoned their responsibilities for Americans behind the wall. One-pick-for-all is just the prison's latest dehumanizing policy. Yet, the State's lawyer's would plead with the courts for "deference" to such policies as "prison officials have the management experience and skills the courts lack".
What prison officials have is the court's tacit approval to maintain one of the last vestiges of institutionalized racism in America. And they do so with the court's blessings. I'm asking you, as the Court, to withdraw that approval, that blessing, by removing force feeding from the list of medical services the DOC HSUs can provide to prisoners. By their direct actions the DOC HSUs have repeatedly demonstrated their inability to manage the force feedings without degenerating them into either punishment or torture sessions. And indirectly, as typified by the one-pick-for-all policy, they have demonstrated a lack of responsibility, of human caring, or even medical propriety in their dealings with their given charges.
This Court must, I repeat must, begin to reshoulder its responsibilities to Americans behind the wall and do so by first rescinding its order allowing the DOC to force feed prisoners in its HSUs.
I've combed (picked) out my three weeks of matted hair and returned the "Unit 25"
pick to the Infirmary Unit Manager. I'll be damned if I'll participate in yet another planned indignity to prisoners.
How stands the Court?
Sincerely,
Warren G. Lilly, Jr.
CC:
Gloria Thomas, Atty., WI DOC OLC
Tim Lundquist, DCI Warden
Rick Phillips, DCI Security Director
Fred Goetsch, DCI Infirmary Unit Manager
Warren G. Lilly, Jr.
DOC # 447655
DCI, P. O. Box 700
Waupun, WI 53963-0700
Judge A. P. Bissonnette
Dodge County Courthouse, Br. 3
210 West Center Street
Juneau, WI 53039
Re: Case No. 2007-CV-00392, WI DOC v. Lilly
Sir:
On February 10, 2009 I put before the court a motion (Motion for an Order
Rescinding Lilly's Court Order Forced Feedings) asking it to rescind the order it issued allowing the DOC to force feed prisoners, in it I cited several reasons for requesting the motion. Today (March 23, 2009) I offer, by example, yet another reason for the Court to accept my motion and rescind its order allowing force feeding by the DOC. Three weeks ago (March 1, 2009) I asked the DCI Infirmary staff and management to provide me, as required, with a comb or pick suitable for my hair type. I was told that the Infirmary offered no such comb. I found this disturbing as, for the past fifteen to twenty years, more than half of the Infirmary's patients have been African-American.
As I've done at other prisons I informed the Unit Manager of WI Admin. Code Section 303.70(2)(b) which requires that prisoners in segregation status be given a [suitable] comb [or pick]. I first notified the Unit Manager, then the Security Director, and finally the Warden.
Today the Nursing Supervisor, Jim Hebel, came to my cage bearing a black plastic
pick. conspicuously marked with yellow paint "Unit 25". He gave me the pick then
informed me that it was intended to serve the entire Infirmary and that as other
African-American prisoners asked for the pick it would be "scheduled" out for use.
I cringe even to glimpse the cynical, hate filled mindset, the contempt for African-American prisoners which conceived the thought, "We'll buy one pick then let them all use it", then actually put that bigoted plan into effect. The Court must further consider that the group which conceived that shameful plan consisted of some combination of the Infirmary Unit Manager, the prison's Securi.ty Director, the Warden, and possibly a DOC OLC lawyer.
This, Sir, is a prime example of the bigoted and blighted nature of health care
services provided to African-Americans by the State's DOC HSUs. One pick to be
shared, scheduled out, among more than fifty African-American prisoners! The
very idea of sharing a comb under any conditions but especially in a hospital'
setting suggests a level of scorn that borders on depravity, a targeted contempt.
It is no wonder that, statistically, African-American prisoners who receive such
prison controlled health care have a higher mortality rate then the segment of the
free population that does not receive any or only emergency room health care.
The prison officials who masterminded this moronic, depraved, and insulting one-pick-for-all policy are the people, the mindset to whom the court's have abandoned their responsibilities for Americans behind the wall. One-pick-for-all is just the prison's latest dehumanizing policy. Yet, the State's lawyer's would plead with the courts for "deference" to such policies as "prison officials have the management experience and skills the courts lack".
What prison officials have is the court's tacit approval to maintain one of the last vestiges of institutionalized racism in America. And they do so with the court's blessings. I'm asking you, as the Court, to withdraw that approval, that blessing, by removing force feeding from the list of medical services the DOC HSUs can provide to prisoners. By their direct actions the DOC HSUs have repeatedly demonstrated their inability to manage the force feedings without degenerating them into either punishment or torture sessions. And indirectly, as typified by the one-pick-for-all policy, they have demonstrated a lack of responsibility, of human caring, or even medical propriety in their dealings with their given charges.
This Court must, I repeat must, begin to reshoulder its responsibilities to Americans behind the wall and do so by first rescinding its order allowing the DOC to force feed prisoners in its HSUs.
I've combed (picked) out my three weeks of matted hair and returned the "Unit 25"
pick to the Infirmary Unit Manager. I'll be damned if I'll participate in yet another planned indignity to prisoners.
How stands the Court?
Sincerely,
Warren G. Lilly, Jr.
CC:
Gloria Thomas, Atty., WI DOC OLC
Tim Lundquist, DCI Warden
Rick Phillips, DCI Security Director
Fred Goetsch, DCI Infirmary Unit Manager
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