PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Roger Mitchell Jr., the former chief medical examiner in the District, who was among the health professionals who pushed for an inquiry of Fowler’s cases, welcomed the review. “I think this is amazing for the country that an audit of a medical examiner system is happening in this way surrounding deaths in custody,” Mitchell said. “This can act as an objective model for this type of audit of other medical examiner systems as we attempt to understand death in custody and the role of the medical-legal death investigation system in death-in-custody cause and manner-of- death designation.”
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "“It’s really important to just acknowledge the family members over the years who, again and again, were telling public officials, telling their lawyers, and telling anyone who would listen that [a medical examiner’s] report got it wrong,” said Sonia Kumar, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, which has pushed for more accountability and transparency in policing. “From our perspective and the perspective of a lot of family members, so much of this undertaking, this questioning, is about making sure that we’re actually trying to prevent deaths that could be preventable,” she said. “We can’t do that if we’re not telling the truth about how people die."
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STORY: "Md. attorney general orders detailed review of 100 in-custody deaths," by Reporters Ovetta Wiggins and Steve Thompson, published on October 19, 2022. ( Ovetta Wiggins covers Maryland state politics in Annapolis. She came to The Washington Post in 2003 and previously worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Bergen Record in New Jersey. Steve Thompson writes about government and politics in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. Before joining The Washington Post in 2018, he was an investigative reporter for the Dallas Morning News. He started in journalism as a police reporter at the St. Petersburg Times.
PHOTO CAPTION: "David Fowler, a retired forensic pathologist and former chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland testifies April 14, 2021, in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin at the Hennepin County Courthouse in Minneapolis.)
GIST: "Attorney General Brian Frosh has ordered a detailed review of 100 autopsies of people who died in law enforcement custody after a team of experts determined that further scrutiny is warranted."
The announcement comes more than a year after Frosh launched a one-of-a-kind probe of 1,300 autopsies handled by former Maryland medical examiner David Fowler, who testified for the defense in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd.
An independent panel of experts from around the world was tasked with deciding the scope and scale of the audit of Fowler’s work.
“We embarked on this process with the goal of overseeing a professional and independent audit that adheres to the highest standards of impartiality and integrity,” Frosh said in a statement about the panel’s work.
Fowler wrote in an email that he has not read the panel’s recommendations, but “I look forward to doing so." He said he has offered his full cooperation in the audit.
“As I have said since this effort was announced in May of 2021, I am proud of my seventeen years of service as Maryland’s Chief Medical Examiner, and I am confident that any fair review will confirm that the Office met or exceeded all applicable professional standards,” he said in an email.
Frosh’s office, in consultation with Gov. Larry Hogan’s office of legal counsel, ordered an audit of cases handled by the state during Fowler’s tenure after receiving an open letter signed by more than 400 medical experts who questioned Fowler’s testimony in Chauvin’s trial and called for an investigation to determine whether the practices of the examiner’s office for investigating in-custody deaths under Fowler were inappropriate.
Roger Mitchell Jr., the former chief medical examiner in the District, who was among the health professionals who pushed for an inquiry of Fowler’s cases, welcomed the review.
“I think this is amazing for the country that an audit of a medical examiner system is happening in this way surrounding deaths in custody,” Mitchell said. “This can act as an objective model for this type of audit of other medical examiner systems as we attempt to understand death in custody and the role of the medical-legal death investigation system in death-in-custody cause and manner-of- death designation.”
In his testimony, Fowler linked Floyd’s death to heart disease and drug use rather than his oxygen being cut off while pinned beneath Chauvin’s knee for more than nine minutes.
The panel’s report said that medical examiners should distinguish natural deaths from nonnatural deaths by applying the “but-for” principle. If a death would not have happened “but for” an unnatural factor, it should be classified as unnatural, the report said, relying on a 2002 guide by the National Association of Medical Examiners.
Under the “but-for” principle, a death is unnatural regardless of whether the nonnatural factor unequivocally precipitated the death, exacerbated an underlying condition or “contributed to the death of a person with natural disease typically survivable in a non-hostile environment,” the report said.
In sum, the report said, “the manner of death is unnatural when injury hastened the death of one already vulnerable to significant or even life-threatening disease.”
The report, while acknowledging there is often no right or wrong answer to manner-of-death classifications, said experts recruited for the audit will be on the lookout for similar cases being classified differently in a way that reflects bias.
“While there may be debate about how much certainty is required to reach a finding of homicide in a restraint death case,” the report said, “there can be no debate that the threshold should be the same regardless of the race of the decedent or the identity of the person or persons applying the restraint.”
To guard against bias in their own observations, the reviewers will not initially know the Maryland medical examiner’s determination or certain other details, such as the race, identity or law enforcement affiliation of people involved in the death, the report said.
“It’s really important to just acknowledge the family members over the years who, again and again, were telling public officials, telling their lawyers, and telling anyone who would listen that [a medical examiner’s] report got it wrong,” said Sonia Kumar, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, which has pushed for more accountability and transparency in policing.
“From our perspective and the perspective of a lot of family members, so much of this undertaking, this questioning, is about making sure that we’re actually trying to prevent deaths that could be preventable,” she said. “We can’t do that if we’re not telling the truth about how people die.""
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/19/maryland-autopsy-medical-examiner-fowler/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resurce. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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