Keith Gavin, who is about to be executed subsequent Thursday or Friday, says his physique can be subjected to an “invasive post-mortem” that may violate his “sincerely held non secular beliefs”, in addition to Alabama state regulation, in line with the criticism filed by his attorneys final month.
Amongst these named as defendants within the lawsuit are Escambia County District Lawyer Steve Billy, Alabama Division of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm and Terry Raybon, warden of the William C Holman Correctional Facility the place Gavin is incarcerated on dying row.
The criticism is looking for a judicial order stopping the defendants from performing the post-mortem and requiring them “to respect Mr Gavin’s constitutional rights and sincerely held non secular beliefs”.
Gavin is a religious Muslim, the criticism says, and his faith “teaches that the human physique is a sacred temple, which should be stored entire”.
An post-mortem, he says, would desecrate his physique and “violate the sanctity of conserving his human physique intact” alongside along with his proper to the free train of his faith.
The lawsuit claims Gavin’s attorneys have repeatedly tried to achieve state officers in command of the post-mortem course of concerning his request for his “earthly stays to be dealt with constant along with his religion”, however have obtained no response.
Instantly after Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed Gavin’s April 25 letter setting his execution date, the lawsuit says the defendants failed to reply to cellphone calls, emails and in-person visits or have declined to talk with Gavin’s attorneys.
“This regulation is meant to determine with certainty the reason for dying in any such occasion. After Mr Gavin’s execution, there can be no query as to who or what brought on Mr Gavin’s dying. The State will execute him by deadly injection,” the lawsuit argues.
CNN has reached out to the Alabama Division of Corrections and Alabama Lawyer Normal Steve Marshall’s workplace for touch upon the lawsuit.
Alabama has confronted scrutiny over its executions after a number of failed deadly injections prompted an inner assessment of the state’s capital punishment system in 2022.
Ivey requested the state Division of Corrections to conduct a “top-to-bottom assessment of the state’s execution course of” after the issues got here into the nationwide highlight, CNN beforehand reported.
The state resumed executions final spring after the assessment was accomplished.
