An Alabama state judge ruled that a lawsuit accusing Alabama prisons of illegally harvesting the organs of people who died while incarcerated will be allowed to proceed.
The consolidated lawsuits filed by eight families say that the Alabama Department of Corrections illegally allowed the University of Alabama at Birmingham to study the organs of their deceased incarcerated relatives without the consent of the next of kin.
Lawyers for the defendants argued that the public entities were entitled to state immunity because they were operating in their official capacity. The judge wrote that immunity doesn’t apply if their actions violate the law.
