Over My Dead Body: How the Albrecht Decisions Complicate the Constitutional Dilemma of Due Process & the Dead
![handle is hein.journals/utol41 and id is 171 raw text is: COMMENTS
OVER MY DEAD BODY: HOW THE ALBRECHT
DECISIONS COMPLICATE THE CONSTITUTIONAL
DILEMMA OF DUE PROCESS & THE DEAD
Denay L. Wilding Knope*
I. INTRODUCTION
IN 1816, Mary Shelley penned the line, It was on a dreary night of
November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils, opening the
ominous chapter describing the chilling moment when Victor Frankenstein
infuses life into his monster.' The scene is charged with anticipation, anxiety,
and excitement until Frankenstein first beholds his creation open its dull yellow
eye, causing the young scientist to become filled with horror and disgust over
the twitching wretch that lay before him.2 The reader quickly learns that the
wretch is composed of carefully selected features including lustrous black ...
flowing hair and teeth of ... pearly whiteness, features which are
independently beautiful but create a horrid contrast to the creature's watery
eyes, straight black lips, shriveled complexion, and yellow skin [that]
scarcely covered the ... muscles and arteries beneath.3
Although Shelley's original intent in drafting Frankenstein was to write a
ghost story to fill her readers with fear and terror, to the modem critic, her tale
resonates with prophetic warnings of the moral issues encountered by scientists
* J.D. Candidate, May 2010. I wish to thank Professor Susan Martyn for her assistance in
selecting this topic, Professor Doug Chapman for his time, insight, and guidance throughout the
writing process, as well as my old friend, Katy-Bear Balcer, for lending me her keen editorial eye.
I am especially indebted to my husband, Brandon, for his encouragement and patience, as well as
my family of cheerleaders: the Wildings, the Smiths, the Knopes, and the Passalacquas. Finally, I
would like to thank the entire University of Michigan-Dearborn English Department, and
specifically Jonathan Smith and the late Jackie Lawson, whose time, attention, and constructive
criticism challenged me to work harder and always revise and improve upon the next draft.
1. MARY SHELLEY, FRANKENsTEIN: OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS 56 (The New American
Library of Canada, Ltd. 1965) (1818).
2. Id.
3. Id.
4. Id. at viii-xi.
169](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/utol41&div=9&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Over My Dead Body: How the Albrecht Decisions Complicate the Constitutional Dilemma of Due Process & the Dead
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