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Muslim death row inmate makes unusual request for after his execution in Alabama
An Alabama inmate on death row set for execution next week asked the the state not to autopsy his body due to his devout Muslim faith.
Keith Edmund Gavin, 64, was convicted of capital murder for the March 1998 shooting death of delivery driver William Clinton Clayton Jr., when he stopped to withdraw money from an ATM, Seattle Times reported.
Gavin is set to die by lethal injection - the Southern state's primary execution method - in an execution held at the William C. Holman Correction Facility outside Atmore between midnight Wednesday July 17 and 6 am on Friday, July 19, according to Governor Kay Ivey's office.
While it is standard practice in the state of Alabama to perform an autopsy after execution, Gavin asked through his attorney to prohibit the act following his death for religious reasons.
On Tuesday, William Califf, a spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, said they are 'working on a resolution,' according to the news outlet.
Keith Edmund Gavin, 64, is set to die by lethal injection on or around July 18
Alabama's lethal injection chamber at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore is pictured in this Oct. 7, 2002, file photo
'Mr. Gavin is a devout Muslim. His religion teaches that the human body is a sacred temple, which must be kept whole,' his attorney's wrote.
'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.'
Last month, Gavin's lawyers filed a lawsuit in state court in Montgomery after they were not able to meet with state officials to grant his request ahead of his execution, which will be the state's third one this year.
They explained that the court filing was not an attempt to stay their clients execution, as per the news outlet.
William C. Holman Correction Facility where the execution will take place
Gavin's victim Clayton Jr. worked as a contract courier for Corporate Express Delivery Systems before his murder in 1998.
After Clayton Jr. completed his deliveries for the day on March 6 of that year, he stopped at the bank to get money to take his spouse out for dinner, Atmore News reported.
However, he would never make it home.
Clayton Jr. was fatally shot while sitting in his van outside the Regions Bank in the downtown area of Centre.
According to court documents, Gavin had been previously convicted of murder and attempted murder for shooting at a law enforcement officer, which led to two counts of capital murder, CBS News previously reported.
A jury voted 10-2 in favor of the death penalty for Gavin and sentenced him to death.
As of January 2024, there are 24 states that have the death penalty and 23 that do not - while a further three have a moratorium on it
The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is typically reserved for especially heinous crimes in which a victim is killed, but each state can determine what specific circumstances make a murder eligible for a death sentence.
As of January 2024, there are 24 states that have the death penalty, 23 that do not and three that have a moratorium in place, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Last year, there were 24 executions in the United States, all of them carried out by lethal injection.
However, of the nine executions to take place in 2024, one of them was done by the controversial new method: death by nitrogen hypoxia.