Alabama families file lawsuit over inmates missing organs

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Reason number 1,332,542,634,752,742,155 to not trust the criminal justice system.

BOSSIP previous reported on a case involving an inmate at Limestone Correctional Facility named Kelvin Moore. Upon his death, Moore’s major organs were removed during autopsy and the rest of his body was returned to his family. Sufficed to say, Moore’s family was rightfully livid and demanded the organs along with justice for their desecrated family member.

According to a new report in Cleveland19, five families in total have now filed lawsuits against University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Department of Pathology for also removing their loved one’s organs without permission. The families of Charles Edward Singleton, Arthur Olen Stapler, Jim William Kennedy, Anthony Perez Brackins, Brandon Dotson, and the aforementioned Kelvin Moore are all seeking explanations and restitution for the university’s egregious conduct.

In response to the legal action, UAB released the following statement:

“We are in compliance with laws governing autopsies; our protocols require documented consent under the law, which includes consent for disposition of organs removed within the clinical standard necessary to determine a cause of death. UAB only conducts autopsies for incarcerated individuals after the ADOC certifies that the autopsy has been properly authorized by an appropriate legal representative of the deceased. A panel of medical ethicists reviewed and endorsed our protocols regarding autopsies conducted for incarcerated persons. Due to pending litigation and laws related to the privacy of medical records, we cannot comment on any specific autopsy.”

According to CNN, in 2021 the state of Alabama passed a law stating that a medical examiner must notify the next-of-kin and obtain permission to keep the deceased’s organs for educational study or to determine cause of death. This case seem to fly in the face of that law. There is currently a bill that proposes that such acts will be deemed class C felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The folks at UAB better hope this case is resvoled