• A bill jointly authored by Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) and Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) to ensure autopsies are conducted only by licensed physicians and forensic autopsy reports are accurate and unbiased passed off the Senate floor on Aug. 24 on a 38-1 vote and is now headed to the governor.
“At the Ventura County Medical Examiner’s office, it was discovered that a number of autopsies were done by unlicensed medical staff while the then-medical examiner was on vacation,” Jackson said. “This has caused understandable distress and anger to the families, eroded the public’s trust, and raised a number of important questions about how we conduct postmortem exams. This bill takes an important step toward clarifying current law on this issue by ensuring that only licensed physicians can conduct these examinations, and that they are done with great integrity and at the highest standard of care.”
Senate Bill 1189 would require a forensic autopsy to be conducted only by a licensed physician or surgeon and defines such autopsies as a medical examination to determine cause of death. Recent amendments would allow trained county personnel, under the supervision of a physician or a coroner, to take blood, urine, or vitreous samples for the purpose of crime-scene investigations.
Additionally, under the bill, if law enforcement personnel were directly involved with the custody of an individual and that person died in their care, they would not be allowed inside the autopsy room during the performance of the autopsy. Further, the bill requires police reports, crime scene photos and videos, or other information that is in the possession of law enforcement be made available to the medical examiner prior to the completion of the death investigation.
Jackson has also separately requested that the California Medical Board conduct an investigation and take appropriate action against the former Ventura County medical examiner, Dr. Jon Smith, as well as any staff who have conducted procedures or an autopsy without having the training or license to do so.
This article appears in Sep 1-8, 2016.