Navajo Family's Claim Regarding Autopsy and Cremation Dismissed

The Associated Press reports that a New Mexico federal district court on April 4 dismissed the remaining state free exercise of religion claims in a suit by a Navajo family who accused the state Office of the Medical Investigator of violating tribal religious traditions when it performed an autopsy and then erroneously cremated the body of Abel Taylor. An earlier opinion in the case, Taylor v. Zumwalt, upheld plaintiffs' standing under New Mexico's RFRA statute.