Autopsy shortcomings in Texas under the spotlight

 Under many circumstances, including when a person is killed or dies in apparently suspicious circumstances, an autopsy is required by the State of Texas.

The medical examiner is required to provide insight on how and why somebody has died, by examining the body and analysing lab results and clues from crime scenes.

However, as reported by an extensive article in the Star Telegram, a number of major autopsy failures is casting serious doubt on the system.

The article reports that over the years, Texas medical examiners have misidentified bodies, botched examinations and had to reconsider cases of individuals later exonerated by law enforcement.

Serious doubts have been raised about the guilt of inmates convicted of murder and sentenced to death, when it has later emerged that the 'murder' may have been a natural death.

For example, an Austin baby-sitter has spent years on death row for a baby's murder. The medical examiner whose testimony helped put her there now says the baby's death may have been an accident.

Another woman was sent to death row in Alabama after a medical examiner now working in Texas said she suffocated her newborn. Other experts revealed that the baby was still-born.

Numerous other errors have been reported, such as medical examiners getting confused on eye color and gender, or describing appendixes which had been removed a long time before, or confusing the body of a child molester with the the body of an elderly woman.

A woman who lost her husband after he was admitted to an El Paso hospital received an autopsy report identifying her husband as Hispanic, when he was actually "white, blue eyes, really white". He was "a big white guy" she said, adding "there is no mistak(ing) he was a white man".

Significantly, Texas law doesn't require medical examiners to take notes, produce body diagrams or photograph evidence. In fact,  Texan medical examiners don't even need to be trained in forensics or pass a special exam to do an autopsy.

Even medical examiners question the thoroughness of some autopsies. Their concerns were echoed in a report by the National Academy of Sciences to Congress this year. It warned the quality of forensic science work (in both crime labs and medical examiners' offices) is undermined by inadequate training, inconsistent practices and a lack of oversight.

"These shortcomings pose a threat to the quality and credibility of forensic science practice and its service to the justice system," the report warns.

Critics say the medical examiner's office is "the last bastion of junk science." The problems, are similar to those that plagued the states crime labs for years: lack of performance standards, poor documentation, a shortage of qualified personnel and lax oversight.

There can be no such thing as junk science or any careless medical report when it is going help someone to live or be sentenced to death. As private investigator Tina Church said: "There is no room for error when somebody's life depends on their findings".