Jury report also cites issues with response times
Lakeport— The Civil Grand
Jury Final Report included a review of the Lake County Sheriff’s
responsibilities as coroner and contractual obligations of the mortuary. The
report found that there were inconsistencies in the chain of custody procedures
and enforcement of response times, giving the Sheriff’s department 60 days and
the Board of Supervisors 90 days to respond to their findings.
The Lake County Sheriff’s
Coroner Office is located at 1220 Martin St. in Lakeport and serves the
entirety of Lake County including the cities of Lakeport and Clearlake.
Responsibilities of the Sheriff-Coroner include determining the cause of death,
investigation of necessary mortalities, notifying next of kin as well as
performing autopsies. Although the Sheriff assumes the role of coroner during
administrative hours, the Grand Jury stated “During the hours from 4:30pm to 8
am, coroner duties are performed by the Sheriff Lieutenant/Deputy Coroner who
serves as the Chief Deputy Coroner and oversees the day-to-day operation and
routinely reports to the sheriff. Each of the Lake County sheriff deputies
serves as deputy coroners.” Deputy coroner responsibilities include reporting
and documentation, collaboration with other agencies and contacting the mortuary
for removal of remains. The Sheriff’s Office also contracts a part time
physician who conducts autopsies one day each week at the primary contracted
mortuary.
According to the Grand
Jury “The current 2021–2022 budget for the Sheriff-Coroner contract is
$10,330,672. The current contract does not have an expiration date and was
automatically renewed, despite the general governmental practice of having a
five year limit.” This was one of the issues cited with the Grand Jury
suggesting “That the Sheriff-Coroner review the contract and RFP (request for
proposal) every five years.”
As part of their research
the Grand Jury discovered “that a resident had to wait with her deceased loved
one for three hours before the mortuary arrived to retrieve the body.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Sheriff remained outside in his patrol vehicle.” The Jury
found that this was a violation of the contract noting, “The agreement for
mortuary services line item six states, “The mortuary shall respond, when
dispatched, within 30 to 45 minutes but in no event shall mortuaries’ response
time exceed 60 minutes.” Moving forward the Jury suggests stricter enforcement
of the response requirement in the mortuary contract.
The Grand Jury also found
that “The Lake County Sheriff–Coroner’s office does not have a formal
chain-of-custody procedure for release of a body to the mortuary.” This
practice helps keeps accountability and transparency. The Grand Jury recommends
“That the Lake County Sheriff-Coroner’s office implement a chain- of-custody
process for the movement of remains that includes a signature, printed name,
date, and time.”
The full Grand Jury report
on the Sheriff/Coroner as well as other final reports are available on the Lake
County website lakecountyca.gov.
Lake County Record Bee
Nikki Carboni
August 19, 2022
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