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Sunday, June 03, 2007
Ind. Law - "Law would allow judges to seal coroners’ reports"
"Public records lawyers say Jill Behrman's death report illegally sealed " was the heading of this ILB entry from March 2, 2006, with follow-ups March 10th and June 8th of 2006.
Today Niki Kelly of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reports that a new law may change that. Some quotes:
While lawmakers were busy detailing new training requirements for county coroners, they also inserted a provision that will make it easier for prosecutors to seal coroners’ reports in sensitive death investigations.It will be very hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube ...Under current law, coroners must make certain information available for public inspection and copying for every death investigation, often called a coroner’s report.
Some of these items include the name, age, address, sex and race of the deceased; the address where the body was found; the name of the person reporting the death; limited information regarding an autopsy; and conclusions on the cause and manner of death.
But Steve Key, lobbyist for the Hoosier State Press Association, said some coroners just weren’t completing the reports, possibly at the behest of police trying to keep details under wraps.
Newspapers in three high-profile homicide cases statewide sued, alleging the coroners weren’t following current state law to provide the reports.
But Key said the judge had no recourse because no timeline is specified in the law for when such a report must be made available.
That’s why the press association pushed for a provision that made it into the bill – and will become effective July 1 – clarifying that the information must be made available no later than 14 days after the completion of the autopsy report or any other report – such as toxicology – requested by the coroner as part of the investigation. * * *
But the state prosecutors association wasn’t happy with the language and worked with Key to add a section allowing the reports – including the cause and manner of death – to be sealed in some situations.
Specifically, the new law says a prosecutor can petition a local judge to prohibit the coroner from publicly disclosing information otherwise required to be available to the public. The judge must find that public access or dissemination of the information would create a significant harm to the criminal investigation of the death.
Judges have sometimes sealed coroners’ reports, the most famous of which was the Jill Behrman case. The 19-year-old Indiana University student disappeared while riding her bicycle in 2000.
Key said it was questionable whether the judge actually had the right to seal the report in that case, but the new provision provides that specific authority via state statute.
Allen County Chief Deputy Coroner Dick Alfeld said the coroners association didn’t object because the provision is helpful to law enforcement officials to keep certain information private to weed out possible suspects.
“It makes our position much stronger,” he said.
But he and others don’t think the provision sealing records will be used often.
“My understanding is it would be rarely used,” said Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, the author of the legislation. “I don’t think a judge would allow them to do this on a whim. There has to be some compelling reason.”
Key also said it was not the intention to regularly shield a coroner’s report from the public. In fact, the entire purpose at the beginning of the session was to ensure coroners were actually doing the reports.
“If prosecutors are routinely filing requests to seal the coroner’s report then we will have a problem and we’ll have to go back to the General Assembly,” he said. “That was not the intent of the legislation.”
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 3, 2007 09:43 AM
Posted to Indiana Law