Three nursing home employees did not violate a law meant to protect patients from abuse when they arranged a dead woman's body into different poses and snapped pictures, the state appeals court has ruled.
In a decision released on Friday, the Michigan Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that because a dead body is not a person, it is not protected under a statute that protects patient abuse in nursing homes.
After Lillian McIntyre, 88, died in the Cherrywood Nursing Home in Sterling Heights on Oct. 13, 2004, nurse's aides Tahirah Shakur, Keisa Cooper and Nichole Jackson were told to prepare her body to be moved to a funeral home.
The women "posed McIntyre's body by raising her hands into the air, putting her arms behind her head, and bending her knees," the appellate court ruling said.
"They also patted McIntyre's hand and told her to 'wake up.' Shakur took a picture, using the camera on her cellular phone, of defendants Cooper and Jackson hugging McIntyre's dead body."
In their six-page ruling, the appellate judges wrote, "While we condemn the behavior of the defendants and find their actions reprehensible and disrespectful to the deceased, they do not comprise a violation of the statute."
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