The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, is urging Alabama authorities to accept a request from a Muslim inmate that no autopsy be performed on his body after execution, in accordance with his religious beliefs.
Keith Edmund Gavin, 64, is scheduled to be executed July 18 by lethal injection. He’s set to be executed for the 1998 murder of a courier driver.
Gavin filed a lawsuit last month asking a judge to stop the state from performing an autopsy after his execution. In Islamic beliefs, autopsies are generally viewed as impermissible mutilation of the deceased but are permissible in cases of necessity and only to the extent required.
The lawsuit filed last month by Gavin's lawyers states, “His religion teaches that the human body is a sacred temple, which must be kept whole. As a result, Mr. Gavin sincerely believes that an autopsy would desecrate his body and violate the sanctity of keeping his human body intact. Based on his faith, Mr. Gavin is fiercely opposed to an autopsy being performed on his body after his execution.”
It has been the standard practice in the state to perform autopsies after executions. An official with the Alabama Attorney General’s Office said earlier this week that they were working on a resolution, but there's been no word yet on any possible solution.
“The religious freedom guaranteed to every American in our founding documents does not cease to apply behind bars. We urge Alabama state officials to accept Mr. Gavin’s request that his body not be autopsied after execution,” CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor said in a press statement. “There appears to be no reason an autopsy is necessary in this case."
Gavin was convicted of capital murder for the 1998 shooting death of William Clinton Clayton Jr. in Cherokee County in northeast Alabama. Clayton, a delivery driver, was shot when he stopped at an ATM to get money to take his wife to dinner, prosecutors said.
A jury voted 10-2 in favor of the death penalty for Gavin. The trial court accepted the jury’s recommendation and sentenced him to death. Read more here.
