Coroners want secrets to be taken to the grave

From the INQUIRER Editorial:

While the facts surrounding a suspicious or violent death rarely are pleasant, hiding them from public view – as a renewed legislative push in Harrisburg by Pennsylvania coroners would do – will not alter that fact.

A Senate bill that seeks to restrict access to coroner autopsy reports would throw a veil of secrecy over information that, by right, should be part of the public record. For good reason, then-Gov. Ed Rendell vetoed a similar measure last year. Rendell stood up for the basic principle that “the public has a right to the records produced with their taxpayer dollars.”

Beyond that, coroner reports serve to alert citizens and inform policymakers. As the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association notes, there’s a compelling public interest in information about the causes of fatal highway crashes, workplace mishaps, and, of course, suspicious deaths that later could be determined homicides…

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