John F. Kennedy Autopsy

John F. Kennedy Autopsy

The autopsy of President John F. Kennedy was performed, beginning at about 8 p.m. and ending at about midnight EST, on November 22, 1963, the day of his assassination, at the then Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. The choice of autopsy hospital in the Washington, D.C. area was made at the request of Mrs. Kennedy, on the basis that John F. Kennedy had been a naval officer.

In 1963, Texas law required that the autopsy of a person murdered in Texas was to be conducted in Texas, unless the murder occurred in places owned, possessed, or controlled by the U.S. government. Thus, the murder and subsequent medical examination of President Kennedy was legally under the sole jurisdiction of the State of Texas. Texas law required an inquest by a justice of the peace for all homicides, and then, if ordered, an autopsy. Dr. Earl Rose, the Dallas County medical examiner, attempted to enforce this law as the Secret Service was removing President Kennedy's body from Parkland Memorial Hospital for immediate return to Washington, D.C. with Jacqueline Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson. A justice of the peace arrived to support Dr. Rose. After a brief scuffle, the President's casket was taken by the Secret Service. The Dallas County district attorney, Henry Wade, told the justice in a telephone call that he had no objection to the removal of the president's body.