House Majority Leader William Lamberth has filed a bill for the special session next week that would close autopsies and other reports of medical examiners in cases involving "victims of violent crime who are minors." The bill, HB 7007, seeks to make those reports and autopsies of children who are 17 and younger "not public documents."
Following is TCOG's 2018 legislative report on changes related to public records and open meetings. The 110th General Assembly of Tennessee adjourned April 25. 1 - Selection of state college presidents (HB 2000 / SB 2586) A requirement in the law to reveal the names and applications of candidates for president at state colleges, including University of Tennessee, was changed to allow search committees to make public “up to three” finalists instead of requiring disclosure of “no less than three.” The effect is that college search committees now have the option of recommending to a governing board as few as one person as finalist for president. Only the finalist or [...]
State Sen. Joey Hensley, a county medical examiner himself, put a stop on Wednesday to the effort to close autopsy records, noting that the state's autopsy law already provided privacy of medical records of the deceased that are unrelated to the cause of the death. Hensley, a physician and the county medical examiner for Lewis County, decided not to present a bill that would have closed autopsy reports, sending it to the general subcommittee of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. State Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald Hensley, in explaining his action on Wednesday, said the bill was brought to him by the House sponsor (Rep. Eddie Smith, R-Knoxville) [...]
(This is a column by Knoxville News Sentinel Editor Jack McElroy that appeared in the news organization's Sunday edition.) Sen. Joey Hensley, a Republican from Hohenwald and a medical examiner, has introduced a bill to make autopsy reports secret. Rep. Eddie Smith of Knoxville is carrying the bill in the House. Jack McElroy The legislation may sound like a mom-and-apple-pie proposition to the average citizen. After all, what reporter could be so ghoulish as to want to examine records about how people died? Besides, shouldn’t the dead, and their families, be allowed to rest in peace rather than having gruesome details of death dragged before the public? But [...]
The House Health Subcommittee approved a bill Wednesday that would make autopsy investigation reports and findings conducted by the state and county medical examiners confidential. John Lott with the Knox County Regional Forensics Center, Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan, the county medical examiner for Knox and Anderson counties, and State Chief Medical Examiner Julia Goodin, tell lawmakers while they want to make confidential state and county autopsy reports. Speaking to the subcommittee, Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan, the county medical examiner for Knox and Anderson counties, said that having the findings of forensic autopsies available to the public is difficult for family members and sometimes means that familial conditions, such as dementia, [...]
