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Senate committee backs lowering threshold for medical examiner offices from 2.5M to 1M
Summary
Witnesses including Fort Bend County's chief medical examiner told the committee that more counties should be under medical examiner jurisdiction; the committee reported the measure favorably to the full Senate.
The Senate Committee on Criminal Justice voted to report Senate Bill 13 70 to the full Senate after testimony that expanding medical-examiner jurisdictions would improve death investigations and forensic services in growing Texas counties.
Senator Hagenbu (laying out the bill) said the state’s rapid population growth has increased demand for forensic services and that the current statutory threshold requiring counties with populations over 2.5 million to maintain a medical examiner's office leaves many mid-sized counties without the office they need. SB 13 70 would lower that threshold to one million and clarify that two or more counties may form a medical examiner district to share resources.
Dr. Steven Pastilnik, Fort Bend County’s chief medical examiner, described his county’s transition from a justice-of-the-peace system and urged the committee to adopt the bill. He said the bill — and the ability to form multi-county districts — would expand access to trained death investigators and yield a more consistent standard of death investigation across the state.
"Why would you want somebody who's not trained in death investigation to investigate a family member's death?" Pastilnik asked. He recommended using state demographer estimates rather than the decennial census as a planning benchmark to give counties more lead time to plan for establishing medical examiner jurisdictions.
Pastilnik also said the conventional workload rule of thumb is roughly 100 autopsies or investigative cases per 100,000 population per year, and he urged a lower numeric threshold in principle, though he supported the statutory change to 1,000,000 as a practicable step.
The committee recorded a roll-call committee vote of six ayes and zero nays and reported the bill with a favorable recommendation to the full Senate.
Supporters said the change would allow more counties to professionalize death investigations and provide resources to law enforcement and prosecutors; no opposition witnesses were recorded in the hearing record.
The committee also noted minor drafting issues that witnesses said could be fixed by amendment.
