Blog note: this article references a 2006 grand jury report on the subject.
Dr. Bennet Omalu, the county’s chief medical examiner, and Dr. Susan Parson, the county’s forensic pathologist, quit their jobs within a week of each other .
Among the reasons Omalu and Parson cited for their impending departures — they are required to provide three months’ notice — was interference from Sheriff Steve Moore, who also serves as the county coroner, the person who confirms and certifies the death of someone not under medical care.
Under the county system, both Omalu and Parson reported to Moore.
Their impending departures illustrate the need for the office of medical examiner/coroner to be separate from the Sheriff’s Office.
Omalu and Parson allege that Moore has interfered in investigations, ordering them to change the cause of death in some cases, including officer-involved shootings. They also claim Moore made procedural changes, such as not informing them that he had ordered the hands removed from a corpse so they could be sent it out for fingerprinting.
Moore has denied all allegations.
The allegations are serious and should be reviewed closely by the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors and investigated by an independent outside agency.
However, the allegations also illustrate the need for the archaic coroner/sheriff system to be scrapped and replaced with a separate medical examiner’s office.
Supervisors previously considered separating the offices in 2005. That discussion was 10 days after Sheriff Baxter Dunn had resigned on the same day he pleaded guilty in a federal corruption case.
Determining the manner of death in cases when someone is not under the care of a doctor should no longer be left up to someone not medically trained in that area or someone who could have a potential conflict of interest in determining a cause of death.
A coroner is an elected or appointed official. In San Joaquin County, the sheriff is also the coroner. It could also be a funeral home director, a teacher, a musician, even a journalist, provided they received enough votes to win an election for sheriff.
A forensic pathologist, such as Omalu or Parson, is medically trained as a doctor with a specialty in determining a cause of death. On average it takes about 12 years of educational study to become a forensic pathologist.
According to the California Association of Counties, a coroner’s office has three primary functions:
Medical: It conducts autopsies to determine the cause of death in those cases that fall within its jurisdiction; transports and removes bodies; verifies cause of death and signs death certificates; appears at all unattended deaths unless the deceased has been seen by a physician within a specified period of time.
Administrative: It maintains all records; responds to inquiries by law enforcement agencies, doctors, and others with potential cases; provides proper custody and security of valuables; arranges sale of unclaimed property (which may also be done by the public guardian-public administrator); locates families when necessary.
Investigative: Conducts investigations to determine causes of death and/or to establish identity of deceased; conducts inquests.
Yet just 17 of the 58 counties in California have separated the two departments, according to the association.
Last year, Santa Clara County made the change, after merging the two departments in 2004.
Some of the reasons for that change echo what has happened here:
A 2006 civil grand jury report concluded that the union seemed “successful from an administrative perspective.” But a medical examiner testified at a June budget meeting that the relationship with their sheriff overseers had been rocky. And the death a year ago of a jail inmate allegedly at the hands of correctional deputies now charged with his murder has revived conflict-of-interest concerns in death investigations, according to The San Jose Mercury News
Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith said that the medical examiner merger with the sheriff had aimed “to improve management and oversight,” but “that was a different time and place.”
“We need to rethink it,” Smith said. “It’s better to have a separate, free-standing entity responsible for finding and holding evidence, in order to avoid the possibility of contamination or the impression that there’s some kind of impact being made on decision making.”
Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith endorsed the move, stating while the county executive has commended the management of the medical examiner-coroner’s office, “the philosophy of the county has changed to have an independent coroner’s office,” the Mercury News reported.
The impediment in San Joaquin County would be the will of the supervisors to make such a change and also the cost.
In Santa Clara County, which has a population of about 1.8 million, the cost was more than $800,000 to establish and staff a separate medical examiner’s office. That’s about 0.013 percent of its budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year
It’s about 0.05 percent of San Joaquin County’s $1.6 billion budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year.
Without an in-depth assessment, it is unclear what the cost would be to establish a separate medical examiner’s office.
However, the question becomes, can San Joaquin County afford not to fund such an arrangement?
December 9, 2017
Stockton Record
Opinion
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