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6th Circuit: Michigan law does not clearly recognize ?custodial rights to body parts? following autopsy

By Alliance Alert

In Waeschle v. Dragovich, No. 08-2228 (6th Cir., July 22, 2009), a 6th Circuit panel held that "Michigan law as presently developed does not clearly recognize that . . . a custodial right to body parts ["originally retained as part of a lawful criminal investigation"] exists." Karen Waeschle sued the Oakland County's Medical Examiner after learning that her mother's brain, retained by the ME following an autopsy, "had been incinerated as medical waste." Waeschle argued that the ME "violated her right to dispose of her mother?s brain when he did not give her the opportunity to recover it for the purpose of burial or cremation."

Full post as published by Constitutionally Correct on July 27, 2009 (boomark / email).