“...an autopsy and medical records would in no way deter them from conspiracy theories.”
True, and the JFK assassination is an excellent example.
Texas law required that the autopsy be conducted in Texas, where the murder had occurred. The assumption being that the trial would be held in Texas, with a Texas jury, and the body itself is state’s evidence.
The Secret Service said no, this is the POTUS, not just any homicide victim, which gives this case federal jurisdiction.
The Parkland doctors did not want to surrender the body.
The Secret Service, fearing a rigged autopsy and coverup by Texas authorities, prevailed (threatened to arrest, IIRC) and the body was flown to DC and autopsied at Bethesda.
Bobby Kennedy was Attorney General, too.
Due to the tracheotomy, and various other emergency procedures, as well as hastily scribbled rough draft of notes by Parkland doctors which had to be taken into account during the federally-conducted autopsy, some conspiracy theorists have posited ever since that either or both of the doctors at Parkland and those at Bethesda were somehow part of a coverup conspiracy.
As for Scalia? He could not possibly have been murdered with a pillow. Suffocation leaves burst capillaries in the eyes and face that would have been noticeable.
If he was murdered by a CIA poison-dart which mimics a heart attack, this cannot be detected in an autopsy. So the question becomes moot. While murder has not been ruled out by autopsy, it might not have been “ruled in” either, had one been conducted.
Yet conspiracy theorists will forever cite lack of an autopsy as “ evidence” that Scalia’s COD “must have been” murder.
>>The Secret Service said no, this is the POTUS, not just any homicide victim, which gives this case federal jurisdiction.
That’s NOT what they said. They wanted to get Johnson out of there and he wouldn’t leave without Jackie, who wouldn’t leave without JFK’s body. Hence, they took the body. The more sinister theories suggest that either due to their incompetence or even their complicity they wanted the body out of there so they could have more control over an autopsy. The idiots in the SS in that day had no idea what federal jurisdiction even meant. They had a badge and a gun but in almost no other way were they law enforcement officers like they are now. They did believe that when it came to the POTUS, they and only they had ANY say. Of course, they still believe that today.