NEWARK -- A New Jersey judge has ruled for the first time in the state's history that corrections officials can force-feed an inmate staging a hunger strike over prison conditions.

State Superior Court Judge Walter Koprowski, Jr. found Thursday the state's "overwhelming interest in preserving life" trumps inmate William Lecuyer's right to privacy and free speech.

The ruling comes as prison officials and Lecuyer's own supporters both worry the 37-year-old convict is close to death after refusing solid food since last July. A Department of Corrections doctor testified he had lost 100 pounds in the last nine months.



In testimony read over the phone from a cell in Northern State Prison, Lecuyer argued he had no choice but to refuse food and medical care -- his second hunger strike in five years -- because the process for handling inmate grievances "is set up to be incoherent."



"We get passed from one administrator to another, from one department to another," he said.

The inmate claims he is protesting the four months he spent in administrative segregation on charges for which he was later found not guilty, and because corrections officers who allegedly lied about the incident were never disciplined.

Lecuyer also said he is looking to draw attention to the psychological damage isolated confinement can cause to inmates who aren't given the mental health resources to recover from long periods locked alone in small cells. He said prison staff backed out of an agreement to give him the care he needed to transition back to the prison population after three years in isolation.

A DOC spokesman would not comment on Lecuyer's claims, citing medical and internal disciplinary privacy rules.

Lawyers for the state Attorney General's Office and state prison inmate William Lecuyer argue before Superior Court Judge Walter Koprowski, Jr. on Thursday, March 17, 2016.

Deputy Attorney General Nicole Adams argued Lecuyer was not engaged in a political protest but was simply unhappy with his cell assignment. She said the state would be setting a dangerous precedent by caving to his demands, encouraging other inmates to stage similar protests and undermining prison operations.

She said doctors needed to act soon to prevent permanent damage to his brain, heart, liver and other vital organs.

"He may get to the point where he is too far gone to be able to rehabilitate," Adams said.

But Kunal Sharma, Lecuyer's attorney, noted that prison officials have technically had the authority to force-feed the inmate since January, when the judge issued a temporary order, but had not done so.

Prison officials said at the hearing they had not yet performed medical tests or force-fed Lecuyer because he had physically resisted such procedures.

The judge's order gives the state the authority to perform medical examinations and tests that Lecuyer had refused as part of his protest, and to feed him intravenously or through a tube inserted through his nose and into his stomach.

Koprowski said Lecuyer was performing "what amounts to a suicidal act, under the guise of what he perceives to be a political protest" and that there were other ways to voice his objections to prison policies, such as by filing a lawsuit or petitioning the legislature.

"He has other avenues available to him -- he may not like them, but he has them," the judge said.

Sharma said after the hearing that he would seek to challenge the ruling, in part because the judge heard testimony from state officials but took no witnesses on behalf of Lecuyer. He noted that the World Medical Association, a global organization of doctors, opposes the practice as a kind of torture.

"They say, definitively, that you cannot force-feed a competent adult," Sharma said.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.