In Alabama, the dead don’t get to speak for themselves. But this week, a Jefferson County judge made sure the living still can.
According to the suit, they harvested and kept Matthew’s organs without ever asking the people who mattered most: his family.
The Harrells say Matthew’s body was returned in such a state that a funeral director warned them not to look. On paper, the “legally designated representative” who authorized retention of organs wasn’t a family member; it was a prison warden.
That’s not just wrong, it’s outright illegal.
Under Alabama’s Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, the next of kin are supposed to be notified and give consent for any organ retention not required to determine cause of death.
UAB’s legal team argued that under Alabama law, human remains aren’t technically “property,” so the family couldn’t claim conversion. They also claimed the medical examiners acted lawfully.
Ballard didn’t buy it; at least not yet.
The case now heads into discovery, where internal records and decision-making processes will be pried open for the first time.
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Just four months ago, another Alabama judge allowed eight similar lawsuits to move forward against UAB and the Alabama Department of Corrections, calling out attempts to hide behind state immunity and recognizing that the statute of limitations might not even start running if the misconduct was concealed.
Former medical students even documented the practice.
Legislators noticed too, last year, Alabama’s House passed a bill to criminalize keeping organs without family permission. The measure was sparked by families who got their loved ones back from autopsies missing vital parts.
With discovery now in play, the Harrell case is set to ask the questions Alabama officials have long dodged:
- Who really gets to decide what happens to a prisoner’s body?
- And when the state holds all the power, how do families fight back?
The answers won’t just determine the Harrells’ fight; they could blow the lid off an entire system that’s been cutting into the bodies of the voiceless, assuming no one would dare look too closely.
Why This Matters
When people take advantage of one subsection of people’s rights and get away with it, they will keep doing it.
Rights for all or none of it matters for any of us.
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