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Bill would require standardized reporting, checkbox for deaths in custody on death records
Summary
Senate Bill 291 would codify Delaware's reporting of deaths in law enforcement custody, require standardized quarterly affirmations and create an annotation on death records; medical and innocence advocates testified that the measure would improve transparency and help prevent wrongful convictions.
Senator Pinckney presented Senate Bill 291, a measure to formalize Delaware's death-in-custody reporting procedures. The bill would require law enforcement agencies to report deaths of individuals in custody to the Statistical Analysis Center using standardized procedures and forms, require quarterly affirmations even when no deaths occurred, and instruct medical examiners to annotate death records when a person died while in custody.
Dr. Marshala Lee McCall, policy chair of the First State chapter of the National Medical Association and a family medicine physician, told the committee the change — a simple checkbox indicating custody status on a death certificate — would provide essential data for public-health analysis and prevention: "This is a small addition, but it has significant implications for transparency, accountability, and public health." Dr. McCall said accurate reporting is necessary to understand risk and design interventions.
Winnie Yee, state policy advocate at The Innocence Project, testified in support and said better reporting would assist efforts to prevent and correct wrongful convictions, noting national DOJ figures and the challenge of incomplete reporting: "These numbers represent real people whose steps should have been carefully documented, independently reviewed, and promptly reported so that families can receive answers and the public can understand what happened." Yee cited DOJ data on deaths in custody and connected thorough reporting to oversight.
Sponsor testimony described the bill as largely codifying existing practices used by Delaware's Criminal Justice Council and Statistical Analysis Center, with the primary substantive addition being the annotation on the death record. The bill includes enforcement mechanisms that could affect agencies' eligibility for certain state and federal criminal justice funding if they fail to comply.
The committee heard public-health and innocence-advocacy support during virtual testimony; no final committee vote was recorded during this session.
