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Appeals Court Upholds Religious Objection To Autopsy On Executed Prisoner

By Howard M. Friedman

In Johnson v. Levy, (TN Ct. App., Jan., 14, 2010), the Tennessee Court of Appeals affirmed a decision of the state Chancery Court (see prior posting) and rejected the request of the county Medical Examiner to conduct an autopsy on executed murderer Cecil Johnson. Johnson's wife objected to the procedure, arguing that it would violate her husband's religious beliefs.

The court held that under Tennessee's law on preservation of religious freedom (TN Code Ann. Sec. 4-1-407), the Medical Examiner is required to establish by clear and convincing evidence under the specific facts of the case that performing an autopsy is essential to further a compelling governmental interest. While there is a compelling interest to conduct some kind of investigation as to every inmate who is executed in order to assure against cruel and unusual punishment, where a religious objection is raised to an autopsy, that may be part of the investigation only if the compelling interest standard is met. Religious objections might be overruled when the execution was not without incident, the prisoner did not react to the drugs as expected, and there is a need to understand why. Even then, the autopsy needs to be limited to the procedures necessary to understand what happened. UPI reported on the decision yesterday.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 15, 2010 (boomark / email).