Can murderers donate organs?

That's a good question. Let's talk about it.

Hi guys. Welcome. If this is the first time we're meeting my name is Johnny and on my channel I help crime enthusiasts understand the inner workings of criminal investigations. So if you knew here, consider subscribing. All right, so the question that you're all here for is, can murderers donate their organs? And let's talk about something even broader. I'll, I'll get into murderers, but then we'll talk about just prisoners in general, but it's not a black and white answer yet, but I'm gonna give you some definitive black and white answers here because it has to do with the jurisdiction, the complications of the case, so on and so forth. Now, there's some states that have laws that say, Hey, if you're a murderer and you have extreme indifference, certain indicators of that statute, that 100% you cannot donate your organs. So really there's three kind of different categories when you're gonna do donate your organs, right?

For, for these prisoners. One is you're alive, I'm in prison and I want to donate my organs. Two is posthumously, on my DNR or on my will or on my driver's license that you don't, you're not driving in prison anyway. But on there it says, if I pass away, I want to donate my organs. The third reason would be that if I'm on death row. So let's break each one of those down. Now if you're sitting here thinking, okay Johnny, I got it, I got it. I have the right to donate my organs if I'm in prison or anywhere else, right? If you were to say that, you would be wrong because appellate courts, supreme courts, other jurisdictions have said, if you're in prison, you don't have the right to do anything with your body. We get to dictate exactly what happens with you.

You don't get to make choices anymore when you're incarcerated. If you're walking around on the street, you can do whatever the heck you want. You can donate whatever you want to anybody you want, but you're incarcerated. That means no. So if you're alive, here's kind of the standard that they look for. If you wanna donate your organs to Joe Schmo on the street or get on a list or donate to any blood bank or any kind of organization, that's a negative. That's pretty much out. The US Department of Prisons have basically said you can't do that. The only exceptions that are usually made are if they're an immediate family member. And that's not just a given. You have to apply for that and do all jump through a bunch of hoops to get yourself to that point. Now, there's also some controversy around other states.

Say, let's say Massachusetts, they're trying to pass a bill that you get a reduced sentence if you donate bone marrow or organs. Some are like up to 60 days to a year off your sentence if you donate or do do blood marrow. Now that's being opposed by a bunch of people. That's being proposed by a bunch of people. So you have this conflict on, on back and forth with the state of Massachusetts. So we'll see where that bill goes. Now, back in the eighties, there was like a blood crediting program where you could go in, I dunno, I think four times a year, donate your blood and you would get like four days off your sentence. Every time you did that, it then it went up to like 10 days and you could go up to every eight weeks I think. So every eight weeks you'd go in 10 days, donate your blood and ask stuff would come off their sentences.

So that was met with some controversy obviously, because people were saying you could just donate your way out of prison outta your sentence that a judge gave you. So that was overturned in the eighties. And I don't know if there's any programs really left that are doing that. Okay, so let's talk about posthumously person dies in prison and I have on my ID or my chart, I wanna donate my organs. Can't I do that? Well, the US Department of Prison says absolutely not. And very, very few states allow that to happen. And there's a number of reasons. To be a really a viable organ donor, you need to be on some kind of ventilation system or life support system, right? So you have to have oxygenated blood pumping through the system to keep those organs viable. If you pass away in a prison and someone finds you later on, well those organs are no longer viable and it's a moot point.

Anyway, car crashes, same thing. If you die on the scene, it doesn't really matter about those organs, right? They're not gonna be viable for any kind of transport. So those situations, they don't really allow on any really aspect. Another reason is because in prison there's a really, a high rate of infectious diseases like hepatitis and hepatitis can start to destroy the organs in your body as well as H I V. And those things are just not great to donate to somebody else. And prisons, because you're not getting out and you're, you know, you're you're in that kind of environment, they're not really viable. So posthumously not really gonna happen at that point. Okay, let's talk about death row. Now, death row, obviously you can pass away before you're executed and then that would fall into the other postly category that we talked about previously.

But if you do make it to the execution date, well that doesn't really work either because there's a three drug protocol where there's sedated and there's another drug that's for respiratory and then the circulatory arrest and then you pass away or it's hanging or it's some other kind of protocol. You're not on a life support system being maintained in your organs being violently viable like that. Now let's talk about the Nelson Brothers. In 1992, these brothers decided to go out getting a little drunken stupor and beat somebody to death. Well, the judge rewarded them by sentencing, send them both to death. That's a hard word to say. Now what happens in a couple years later, their mother needs a kidney. So they petition the court and the state and they say, we want to donate a kidney to our mother, one brother incompatible, no go.

But in 95, the other brother's kidney was compatible with mother. The transplant transplant occurred and they went in for a three hour surgery and gave the kidney to his mother and she survived. So in that instance that I was talking about earlier, the exception on some states is that if it's a me immediate family member, there's a match. It's not in addition to or to get a reduced sentence. There's no, if there's no quid pro quo for that, it's just a a donation to the family member. And the doctors did their protocol to make sure it was a viable kidney and there was no disease. That did happen in 1995, but to my knowledge there hasn't been any more of that. But there's still petitions over and over and over to have that done because there's such a big huge wait list out. There are people that need viable organs, but the other is the ethical thing about having a murder or somebody like that, giving you a heart or a lung or a kidney, so on and so forth.

Well, that's all I have for this topic. I hope it was a valuable and I hope you learned something and maybe I answer the question or two for you if you got some value add. I was appreciated. If you hit the like button, maybe subscribe if you're not already done so, and let me know when the comments below what your thoughts are about convicted murderers donating their organs. And if you need a organ, would you take one from a convicted murderer or do you know anybody that's tried to do that? I'm curious to know in the comments. So I appreciate you leaving them. Thank you so much for being there. Everybody, all you law dogs, I appreciate you so much and I'll see you in the next video.