Another DDC Opinion Denying Preliminary Injunction Against Force-Feeding

Judge Rosemary Collyer today denied the three remaining motions for a preliminary injunction against force feeding at Guantanamo, concluding that she lacked jurisdiction over the motions.  Judge Collyer reasoned, much as another judge on the same court, Judge Gladys Kessler, had last week, that 28 U.S.C. § 2241(e)(2) precluded Guantanamo detainees from challenging the force feeding regime. The broad similarities between the two rulings seem to stop there, though.  Unlike Judge Kessler's opinion, Judge Collyer's pointedly does not highlight President Obama's authority to alter force-feeding procedures at Guantanamo, or suggest the validity of the detainees' merits arguments.  Indeed today's opinion strikes quite a different and somewhat more dismissive tone, casting certain of the detainees' jurisdictional arguments as "disingenuous," and factual claims regarding force-feeding during Ramadan, and involuntary administration of Reglan (an anti-nausea drug), as "inaccurate." Judge Collyer also writes that, even if she had jurisdiction to hear the detainees' motions, she would refuse nevertheless to enter preliminary relief.  From her ruling:  

Even if the Court had jurisdiction to consider Petitioners’ motion for preliminary injunction, the motion would be denied due to failure to show likelihood of success on the merits and because the public interest and balance of harms weighs in favor of the Government. Although framed as a motion to stop feeding via nasogastric tube, Petitioners’ real complaint is that the United States is not allowing them to commit suicide by starvation. They cite copious experts who state that a sane person should be allowed to choose starvation and death over life. See Mot. at 15-17. Petitioners contend that life-saving treatment is not reasonably related to a legitimate penological purpose. See Turner v Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89 (1987) (a prison regulation must be reasonably related to legitimate penological interests when it impinges on an inmate’s constitutional rights). Even if Petitioners are accorded such constitutional rights, they have not carried their burden of showing that the policy of feeding enterally hunger-striking detainees is unreasonable. See Overton v. Bazzetta, 539 U.S. 126, 132 (2003) (the burden of proof is on the inmate to show that a prison regulation is unreasonable).

As his custodian, the United States cannot “allow” any person held in custody to starve himself to death. Whatever the medical ethics for a person at liberty, the United States as custodian has additional obligations. Numerous courts have recognized the Government’s affirmative duty to prevent suicide and to provide life-saving nutritional and medical care to persons in custody.