Senate Judiciary reviews S210 amendment to allow probate petitions for autopsy reports
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Summary
Senate Judiciary members reviewed amended language for S210 that would allow people not authorized under HIPAA to petition the probate division for autopsy reports, set affidavit and notice requirements, and permit courts to redact reports or limit dissemination; stakeholders flagged enforcement and staff-burden questions.
(Senate Judiciary) — Senate Judiciary members on Feb. 24 reviewed amended language to S210 that would create a court-based avenue for people not authorized under HIPAA to seek copies of autopsy reports from the office of the chief medical examiner.
Katie McLean of the Office of Legislative Council told the committee the proposal does two things: it codifies the existing HIPAA pathway by which certain individuals already receive autopsy reports, and it creates "a court process by which a petitioner could file, with the probate division of the superior court, to receive an autopsy report." The amendment would require a petitioner to file an affidavit attesting to the petitioner's relationship to the decedent and the reason for seeking the report.
Under the draft language McLean read, petitioners must notify the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the county state's attorney within five days of filing; the office and the state's attorney would have 14 days after notice to respond. If the superior court finds "good cause" and the state's attorney does not object, the court could order the office to provide a copy, in whole or in part, and may place restrictions on the petitioner's dissemination of the copy.
McLean summarized the statute's proposed definition of "good cause," which directs the court to weigh the petitioner's relationship to the decedent and family, whether disclosure is necessary for public evaluation of governmental performance, the seriousness of intrusion into the decedent's and family's privacy, whether redaction is the least intrusive means, and whether similar information is available from other public records.
The amendment was drafted with input from "Judge Zonay, the health department on behalf of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and the state's attorney," McLean said, and the same parties had signed off in Senate Health and Welfare. McLean cited an illustrative case raised by constituents of Senator Hardy in which a child's father, acting as guardian for the decedent's children and as next of kin, received an autopsy report while the decedent's mother was unable to obtain it — a fact that prompted discussion of alternate access avenues.
Committee member Sarah Rosemary questioned enforcement: "there's the portion in here about... the court may set parameters around who... the person who receives it can share it with, but there's no enforcement. So the person can have those parameters and ignore them entirely, and what do you do?" McLean replied that a recipient could potentially be held in contempt of court if they did not follow judicial orders and that the language was revised to give courts clearer parameters and the ability to redact.
A committee member asked whether stakeholders had testified about how often petitions like this are filed and about the staff time required to process them. McLean said she did not have firm data on frequency and recalled that Judge Zonay had expressed uncertainty about the staff-time implications.
The committee did not take a formal vote on the language in the transcript. The presiding Unidentified Speaker closed the discussion and said the review would be relayed to the floor the next day.
