Murder Defendant Ordered Force-Fed in Hunger Strike

SANTA ANA —  A man standing trial on capital murder charges refused to end a 13-day hunger strike Tuesday, but was being fed liquids intravenously in an Orange County Jail hospital ward, sheriff’s officials said.

Jonathan D’Arcy’s hunger strike over claims that his case has been mishandled has put court officials in the position of forcing him to eat even though he faces the death penalty if convicted on charges that he set a Tustin bookkeeper on fire three years ago.

Superior Court Judge David O. Carter on Monday ordered that jail medical officials begin force-feeding D’Arcy with a tube should the 34-year-old man refuse to end his hunger strike.

“I think it points up the irony of the death penalty--that we’d work to keep somebody alive just to put them to death,” said Joe Baker, deputy director for the Western region of Amnesty International USA.

D’Arcy, a former janitor who has reportedly lost more than 20 pounds during the hunger strike, has been transferred to the jail ward at Western Medical Center-Anaheim and was diagnosed by a doctor Monday as being “moderately dehydrated.”

Further information on D’Arcy’s condition was not available Tuesday, Sheriff’s Lt. Tom Garner said.

In the meantime, D’Arcy waived his right to be present at his murder trial, which began Monday.

Court-appointed attorneys representing D’Arcy in the trial and for an expected appeal of the feeding order could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Michael H. Shapiro, a USC professor who teaches constitutional law and bioethics, said Carter had legal precedent on his side when he ordered D’Arcy to be forcibly fed.

On a number of occasions, Shapiro said, courts have ordered that prisoners be kept alive against their wishes.

“It would be inconsistent to allow people to die simply because they want to make vivid protests,” Shapiro said.

Even if D’Arcy were to cast his hunger strike as a 1st Amendment issue, Shapiro thinks he would lose his case.

“There are all kinds of things government is allowed to do,” Shapiro said, “especially to persons in prisons.”

D’Arcy’s case has been unusual from the start.

Before the trial even started, attorney George A. Peters failed in a bid to have D’Arcy declared mentally incompetent to stand trial, describing his client as “irrational and incapable of cooperating” with his defense.

D’Arcy opted to keep his lawyer rather than represent himself as he had in the past, but announced the hunger strike at that time.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Molko said his only position on the force-feeding issue has been to ensure that D’Arcy understands his rights and can’t use his “intentional acts” in an appeal.

“As long as the defendant is advised that any absence [during the trial] due to his fasting will be considered as a voluntary waiver of his right to be present, we take no position on his actions,” Molko said.

The prosecutor alleges D’Arcy was seeking revenge on Feb. 2, 1993, when he doused 42-year-old Karen Marie LaBorde with gasoline in her Tustin business office and set her on fire using a cigarette lighter.

The victim worked for a building maintenance company that employed D’Arcy as a contract janitor. She identified him as her assailant before dying about eight hours after suffering burns over most of her body.

Peters contended his client may have wanted to kill LaBorde, but said D’Arcy has a long history of paranoid-type mental problems and never intended to torture her or cause mayhem, charges that make the defendant eligible for the death penalty.

D’Arcy has denied igniting the woman and has vehemently protested his lawyer’s using evidence of his mental problems in his defense.

The defendant claims investigators botched evidence showing that a space heater ignited the flames. Arson experts have said the fire started by an open flame, such as one from a cigarette lighter.

The trial resumes Monday before Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald.